


the spark that lights the fire

by SmileHoney



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astrogaang (Avatar), Background Yue/Suki (Avatar), Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Aang/Katara, Minor Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Not really a star wars au??? its loosely based off of star wars, Oblivious Sokka (Avatar), Oblivious Zuko (Avatar), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated For Violence, Slow Burn, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, but barely, idiots to lovers, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmileHoney/pseuds/SmileHoney
Summary: For generations, Sokka’s family had been members of the rebellion that fought back against the Fire System, whose sprawling and ever expanding empire threatened the entire galaxy. Since he was a little kid, he’d wanted to follow in their footsteps and join the rebellion to help people and stop the Empire. Now, after years of training and hard work, he and his sister Katara were finally members of their very own rebel crew. It should have been exciting, considering how long he’d been waiting for this.There was just one problem- Zuko, the captain of their ship, hates him.And he doesn’t know why.or,An astrogaang AU where the Hundred Year War takes place in space, Appa is a spaceship, and the Gaang helps save the galaxy. All the while, Zuko and Sokka struggle with their feelings for each other.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 69
Kudos: 123





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I am so incredibly excited (and also nervous, tbh) to finally post the first chapter of this fic. I've been working on it for months and have about half of the whole thing written, but finally just decided to post chapter one as a reward for finishing finals.
> 
> There are aspects of this, such as the title, that are inspired by Star Wars, but this is NOT a Star Wars AU. It's just... an astrogaang fic that I wrote after scrolling through my friend [@limit-list's](https://limit-list.tumblr.com/) astrogaang tag on tumblr and getting inspired. If you aren't familiar with the term astrogaang, it just refers to anything related to the Gaang being in space.
> 
> Also I'm not quite sure who came up with using the name Fire Folk to refer to people from the Fire Nation, but the place I saw it was in Heave Ho by salytierra on ao3. 
> 
> There's a lot of worldbuilding, so I'll include some details in the end notes.
> 
> And now, finally and without further ado... here is chapter one.

Sokka sat on his small bunk in the United Republic Star Fleet headquarters, waiting to meet his new crew with sweaty palms and a racing heart, feeling as though he was about to vibrate out of his skin from the combination of excitement and anxiety flooding his body. This- the mindless waiting- was by far the worst part of the whole situation, making his nerves even more prominent. At this point, he was all packed, his belongings tucked away into the duffle at his side, and all there was to do was simply wait for his sister and dad to come get him. He had been sitting there for almost half an hour now, unable to do anything besides bounce his leg up and down or rub his palms across the top of his thighs every few seconds, to expel his nervous energy and to try to get them to stop sweating; all the while, his mind was thinking of every little thing that might go wrong. Maybe the crew wouldn’t like him. Or maybe he wouldn’t like them. Maybe they wouldn’t think he was good enough to be an engineer for their crew and they’d maroon him on some Empire planet-

He stopped his train of thought, knowing that he was getting ahead of himself- the crew placement process was done very purposefully to prevent those very things from happening. He’d be fine, and even if there was some issue, he’d have Katara by his side. As long as they were together, he could handle anything that was thrown his way.

To try and keep his mind off of it, he looked around the room to see if he had everything. All he saw, though, were blank walls that had once been covered in pictures and artwork, empty shelves that had once been full of his clothes and various knick knacks, and a neatly made bed that was a far cry from the usual rumpled mess he had always left it. It was drab and boring, and it made him just a little bit sad to know that he was finally moving on. Excited, of course, but there was that familiar twinge of sadness and fear that accompanied change. He sighed- clearly, nothing would be able to stop him from thinking about what was happening today. 

He had to admit, he wasn’t quite sure why he was reacting this way. All he had ever wanted was to be sitting in this exact spot, about to step aboard a rebellion ship and begin fighting the Empire. He wanted to get out there and make a difference- to help people, to push back against the Empire, to make a stand for all the people in the galaxy who had died, lost loved ones, or had their homes and planets conquered, ruined, or even destroyed during the Great War. It’s what he had worked for his entire life- he’d pushed himself through the academy until he was the top of his class when he graduated. He’d made his way up through the ranks of the Nerrivik Space Force, then joined the United Republic Star Fleet as an engineer. Generation after generation of his family had followed this same path, so really, it was in his blood. He was meant to be here. He’d  _ earned _ his place here.

And yet, he felt vaguely nauseous with anxiety. 

With a startling noise, his door slid open and he looked up quickly to see his sister and his dad. They were familiar and comforting sights- his sister in black trousers, a light blue tunic, and a dark blue tabard that cinched at her waist with a white belt, and his dad in the crisp navy blue and white shit that identified him as a Nerrivian general- and his nerves calmed ever so slightly as his dad smiled at him proudly.

“You ready, champ?” he asked him. 

Katara gave him a reassuring smile when she saw him hesitate ever so slightly, and the remaining tension eased out of him at the sight. He took a deep breath, wiped his hands on his pants one last time, and nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

The United Republic Star Fleet, the joint Earth System and Water Planets rebellion, had established its headquarters on a long forgotten exoplanet in sector twenty-one, far outside of the Empire’s reach. It was a sprawling settlement with a main building where they had meetings, housing, and training, a large hospital, several warehouses stockpiled with rations, clothing, water pouches, weapons, and other resources, as well as an airfield. 

They walked out of the main building and onto the long stretch of the airfield, which was bustling with activity as people and droids rushed around taking care of various tasks like refueling, repairs, and loading or unloading. There was a wide mix of people from all over the Earth System as well as Nerrivians and Alignans, yet everyone called out a cheerful greeting to Hakoda. It was something Sokka supposed he should be used to, growing up the son of a former chief and prominent rebellion general, but it was still startling to realize just how well known he was. His dad wasn’t fazed, though, and called out greetings back as they slowly made their way to a ship on the very edge of the airfield. 

The transport was clearly an older ship; while it had the general shape of modern day transports- a thinner body that came to a rounded point where the cockpit was, allowing for smoother travel through hyperspace- it was still blocky and chunky by current standards. He could see spots on the outside where it had been modified to account for the widely used magnetic launch system, however it was patchy and awkward looking. His mind was already racing with all the ways he could improve it, but he waited to jot anything down on his tablet until he could get closer and see what was actually going on.

Instead, he focused on how out of place it looked, surrounded by the heavily fortified Earth System ships and the smooth, sleek, fuel efficient designs of the Water Planets’ ships. He’d never really seen anything like it, however he could tell it was still well cared for- it wasn’t stained with dirt and it wasn’t falling apart like some of the other rebellion ships were, and he grinned with a renewed sense of excitement, his anxieties seemingly forgotten.

“Let me guess,” a voice said from behind them. “You’re the engineer.”

The trio turned to look at the owner of the voice, a young woman his age with short brown hair. She wore an army green shirt tucked into high waisted black trousers, a long black coat with gray panels running down the sides thrown over it. A dark teal bandana hung around her neck and across her right shoulder, and a dark yellow belt was slung around her waist. Gleaming metal gauntlets covered her forearms, and she wore black fingerless gloves under them. The handle of a golden blaster poked out of a thigh holster on her right leg and two matching handles of thin golden objects he couldn’t identify stuck up out of her thick belt. Red makeup lined her eyes, which glimmered in a way that Sokka knew meant she could kick his ass without breaking a sweat, though her face was open and inviting (and quite beautiful, he couldn't help but observe).

Sokka blushed at the thought and the fact that she was able to tell he was the engineer before he had even stepped on board. He couldn’t help it, really- he liked what he did, fixing up ships and making them work better, and he was good at it. There was something soothing about it

He realized after a moment that he had been staring at her instead of answering, and the air was growing thick with discomfort. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah. Was it that obvious?”

“You were craning your head to look at all the work that’s been done on APPA, so I’d say yeah,” she teased, though it sounded kind and good natured, so Sokka wasn’t too upset. Still embarrassed, of course, but not insulted. “Good to see you, General Hakoda.”

“You as well, Suki. These are my children. They’ll be joining your crew,” Hakoda interjected with a hand on their shoulders. 

“It’s great to meet you both.” She stuck her hand out and shook both of their hands in a traditional Nerrivian greeting, wrist to wrist. “I’m the weapons master on board.”

“I’m Katara, the new healer.”

“And I’m Sokka,” he introduced himself properly this time. 

She grinned at them and turned to walk onboard. “It’s good to have you join the crew. Come on, you should meet the rest of us. We’ll do a tour and get you both settled after take off.” They walked quickly through the ship as Suki kept talking. “So like I said, I’m the weapons master for our crew. Basically, I man the on-board weapons, like the blasters and the cannons, but I also outfit us for on-planet expeditions. Whatever weapon you want, I can get or make.”

“Suki here is also one of the best fighter pilots we have,” Hakoda complimented. 

She preened under the praise and smiled humbly. “Thank you, General. I appreciate that a lot.”

They passed through a large door as she spoke, stepping into what he assumed was the common room. It was a spacious area, with a curved booth covered in light brown leather that wrapped around a large table, a row of cabinets against the wall for storing food and rations, and several storage crates stacked in the corner. Seated in different spaces around the room were the other members of the crew, who were engaged in a lively conversation. When the four of them entered, though, they fell silent and rose to their feet to greet them.

“Everyone, this is my daughter, Katara, your new medic, and my son, Sokka, your new engineer. They’re both the best we’ve got,” their dad introduced them proudly. Sokka waved awkwardly while Katara, in a much more dignified greeting, nodded her head politely.

“Hi General Hakoda! Hi Katara and Sokka!” a bald young man about their age with an intricately patterned blue arrow tattoo running up his head, coming to a point between his eyebrows, greeted as he walked up to them. He wore dark brown trousers, a mustard yellow long sleeved undertunic, and a deep red tunic with cut off sleeves. Over both those layers he wore a short sleeved burnt orange cloak and a brown belt hung around his waist. His tattoo seemed to continue down his arms, judging from the arrow that peeked out from under his undertunic’s sleeves to come to a point on the back of both hands. His tattoos sparked a faint memory in Sokka’s mind, but before he could place it, he was rambling on to introduce himself. “I’m Aang, the pilot! And this is my ship, the Anila Peace Corps  _ Pathfinder _ \- APPA for short. I’m so glad to have you both here.”

Suddenly, his recognition of Aang's tattoos made sense- they had been raised on stories of the Air Nebula nomads, a group of people with a deep connection to the air and space that made them the best pilots in the galaxy. Their ships had been outfitted with the best technologies that made them the fastest amongst the four systems- Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. They had travelled throughout the galaxy as negotiators of peace, prosperity, and aid, and had been a beacon of joy and hope to everyone. 

But one hundred years ago, at the start of the war, they had been wiped out by the Fire System as they began building their empire. The four planets that rested within the Nebula- Anila, Rudra, Begtse, and Varuna- had been destroyed, and there hadn’t been even a whisper of an Air Nomad since. Apparently that was wrong, though, because now there was a boy no older than Katara standing in front of them, baring his tattoos proudly and inviting them upon his ship.

It also explained why the ship they were on was so well cared for and why it had so many modifications to it- it was over a hundred years old, at this point, and likely the only reminder Aang had of his home.

“The Anila Peace Corps... You’re from the Air Nebula?” Katara asked in awe, echoing his own feelings.

Aang smiled, a blend of sorrow and pride in his eyes. “Yes, I am. I was lucky enough to make it out on APPA, but a solar storm came through that knocked me into a freezing asteroid field. It froze us and suspended us in time, essentially like a giant cryogenic chamber. A while ago the rebellion found me, and I’ve been piloting this ship for them since then. We mostly do rescue, trade, and relief missions, though we participate in the occasional battle if needed. We keep an eye out for anyone who might possibly have Air Nomad ancestry, too, but so far it seems that I’m the only one left.”

“Bato and I were the ones to find him, actually. We were taking a shortcut through an asteroid belt to throw off Empire forces and suddenly, there was this blip on the sensor. We thought it was a malfunction, but we went to look anyway and sure enough, there were Aang and APPA, frozen all the way through metal,” their dad explained more. “I’m glad we found him, because he’s one of the best pilots we’ve got, and more than that he’s one of the kindest kids I know.”

“Wow,” Katara breathed. Her eyes were shining with something a little more than admiration, and Sokka smirked; he’d definitely be making fun of her for her instant crush at the first chance he got. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Aang. I’m sorry about everything this war took from you. I’m thrilled to get to work with you, though.”

He bowed to her, a faint blush on his cheeks. “That means a lot. Thank you, Katara.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small droid that was little more than a box with arms, legs, and another smaller box on top that appeared to be its head came running out from under the table, chirping wildly. It was an unfamiliar model to Sokka, so he assumed it was also from the Air Nebula. 

Aang laughed, then explained, “Oh yeah, that’s MO-2. He’s been my droid since I was a little kid on Anila. Just call him Momo, though, it’s what he responds to. He’ll be able to help you with repairs and whatnot, Sokka- he can get into the small parts of the ship that are hard to reach, or he’ll hand you tools, hold things for you, trip you up... Whatever you need, really.”

Sokka crouched down to look at Momo, who was tugging on his pants leg, and laughed as he patted his head. “Hey buddy. We’re gonna be good friends, I think.”

The droid chirped again and ran off, disappearing under the table in his excitement, only to run out once again to stand next to him again. He laughed fondly, and turned his attention to the next person, a short girl with black hair that was tied up in a messy bun and a silver patch over her left eye- a cybernetic implant, he realized when he took a closer look. She wore a dark green short sleeved tunic with a cream trim over a lighter green long sleeve shirt, and a thick army green belt wrapped its way around her waist several times. Her hands, much like Suki’s, were covered by fingerless brown gloves.

She stuck out her hand for both of them to shake as she introduced herself. “I’m Toph. I handle communications and the sensors, but I’ve been doing repairs around here since our last engineer dipped out and I also help Suki out with the weapons. I’m glad to have you here, Snoozles,” she directed at Sokka, “because I’m not trained or authorized for combat repairs.”

“Snoozles?” he asked her in confusion. His dad snorted as he laughed, but he ignored him.

She gave a halfhearted shrug. “Yeah. Everyone gets a nickname sooner or later around here. I feel like you like your sleep, so… Snoozles.”

He grinned. “You're not wrong, so... I can work with that. I guess we’ll be working together pretty closely then?”

“Yup. No one knows the inside of this ship better than me. Not even Twinkle Toes.”

“That’s me,” Aang clarified helpfully. 

“Well then, I look forward to learning from the master.”

To his surprise, Toph punched him in the arm,  _ hard _ . “I like you already, Snoozles!”

“Toph, ease up a bit. They're still green,” the voice of the last person in the room spoke up. It was easily one of the most attractive voices he’d ever heard, raspy and deep, and when Sokka looked over towards the direction it came from, he almost passed out. 

The owner of the voice was an equally attractive young man, leaning against the wall wearing black leather trousers, a deep maroon turtleneck, and a long black coat- which distinctly reminded Sokka of a pirate- with red accents. Crisscrossing across his chest were the leather straps of what Sokka assumed was a sheath, if the handles protruding out from behind his shoulders were anything to go from. Like Suki, he wore a thigh holster that held a blaster, though his was black, and the handles of several knives stuck out from his belt. Despite the fact that his long, dark brown hair was falling over his left eye and his face was set in a deep scowl that radiated anger, Sokka thought this man was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

When he pushed away from the wall and tossed his hair away from his face, Sokka’s knees definitely almost buckled, though it was for two completely different reasons. 

The first was that he had a large scar that covered nearly the entire left side of his face, stretching up over his forehead, down to his chin, and into his hairline. The area directly around his eye was a dark, violent looking red color that nearly matched the maroon turtleneck he wore, and it got progressively lighter as it radiated outwards, fading to a light, shiny pink. 

The second was the fact that his eyes were a bright golden color, one that he recognized immediately. 

“You’re from the Fire System,” both he and his sister said at once, stepping back together.

“Yeah,” he snapped, face twisted in… not anger, but more frustration? Before Sokka could suss out what he was feeling, he continued, “I’m also the captain of this crew and the copilot. Is that going to be a problem? Because if so, you better turn around now.”

“Hey,” his dad stepped between them, arms spread. “Listen, all of you. I know it must be strange for you two to see Fire Folk on this ship, but Zuko’s the best captain there is. He’s been with us for years and has provided invaluable ideas, intel, and has flown some of our most important rescue missions with Aang. You can trust him. And Zuko,” he directed towards the captain with narrowed eyes, “play nice. Do you think you can all do that?”

Sokka studied him carefully around his dad and moved past the beauty to really look at him. He had clearly been wounded by the Empire, if the scar was anything to go by, so it was likely that he hated them as much as anyone else on the ship. And despite the scowl, his golden eyes betrayed his worry at the thought that they might leave. Sokka decided to trust his dad’s judgement, knowing he wouldn’t put them on a crew with someone they couldn’t trust. 

“Yeah,” he said finally with a step forward and a hand outstretched to Zuko. “I can do that.”

Katara shot him a look, but stood by his side anyways and stuck her hand out, too. “I agree with my brother. No issues here.”

The captain nodded and shook both their hands firmly. “Good. In that case, I’m Zuko. Welcome aboard.” Then, in a dramatic swish of black he was gone, stalking off to some other part of the ship.

Hakoda sighed and turned to them. As if communicating telepathically, the other three members of their new crew turned to leave and give the family a private moment.

“Listen, kids, I’m sorry about him. He can be prickly at first, but I promise you he’s a good man… I just want you to know that I’m so proud of you. Bato is as well, and I know your mother would be, too. If you ever need anything- backup, help, materials, just to talk- you reach out, okay? I don’t want you to go silent on me just because you’re flying through the galaxy. I’ll be worrying. If you don’t reach me, try Bato or even your cousin- she’s on a ship called the _ Aurora _ . And if that doesn’t work...” he sighed. “You just keep an eye out for each other, alright?”

Katara nodded and hugged him, which Sokka quickly joined in on. “We know, Dad,” she said, voice muffled by their dad’s voice. “We’re going to miss you.”

“Yeah,” he agreed with tears prickling in his eyes. “Love you, Dad.”

“I love you both, so much.” With one last proud look at them, he nodded and turned to go.

☆☆☆

Once they took off, Suki, Aang, and Toph showed them around the ship, which was deceptively large. It had a second smaller common room, several washrooms, a large engine room that Sokka was very excited to investigate, and a med bay that Katara was equally as excited to make her own. There was also a large training room and several rooms with bunks for sleeping, plus the separate captain’s quarters for Zuko. As they walked around, Sokka was constantly taking note of places that could be repaired, that needed better welding or newer parts, and what areas he could identify as working inefficiently. He was excited to start working, but he decided he would leave it in favor of getting to know his new crew and settled for jotting those places down on his tablet.

“So, how long have all of you been working together?” Katara asked them as they walked back to the common room after their tour.

“I think we’ve been a crew for… It’s got to be five years now, right?” Suki said.

Aang frowned. “Uh… I’ve been kicking around this century for six years, so I think so?”

Toph shrugged. “I have no idea. Five years sounds right… I ran away when I was sixteen and the rebellion took me in not long after that. I did training for a year, then I joined this crew.” 

“Yeah, it’s been five years then,” Suki said decisively.

“Wow. That’s a long time. We decided to work in the NSF for a while instead of going to the rebellion immediately, so I guess that explains why we’ve never run into each other before,” Sokka mused.

“That’s probably it. I was also born on Kyoshi, one of the last Earth System strongholds besides Ba Sing Se and Omashu. We have one of the biggest rebellion bases besides the ones on Nerrivik and headquarters, and most people on Kyoshi are a rebel themselves. Or, at the very least, a supporter, so I didn’t need to travel to a different planet for my training, which is where we would have met.” With a bitter laugh, she added, “Honestly, I’d bet the only reason the Empire hasn’t occupied Kyoshi is because they think it’s too small to bother them. Little do they know, though, it’s a  _ huge _ source of help for the rebellion.”

“So you were raised into it, then?” Katara asked.

“Since I was a child.”

“We were too,” Sokka nodded. “Generations of our family have been in the URSF, or at least the NSF. In the past few generations, that’s translated into eventually being rebellion members, so it was kind of a given we’d end up here. I’ve been training as an engineer since I realized I was good at building, math, solving problems... All that stuff.”

“And I have a natural gift for healing, so I’ve been training as a field medic since I was young, too,” Katara added. 

Changing the subject abruptly, Sokka turned to Toph and eyed the metal plate on the shorter girl’s eye once again. “If you don’t mind me asking, Toph, that’s a cybernetic implant, right?” 

Her hand brushed across it briefly. “Oh, yeah. I’m blind, so I use the implant to connect to the ship’s interface. It’s not really seeing in the way you guys can see, it’s more like… Everything vibrates at different frequencies, right? Well, through the implant and the ship, I can pick up on those vibrations. So I know where things are both inside and outside of the ship based on APPA’s sensors. When that isn’t an option, like on ground missions, Momo serves the same purpose,” she explained. At his name, the droid, who had been following them around, whistled and chirped in agreement.

“Wow, that’s amazing. I’d love to ask you more about it, at some point, if that’s okay with you.” He knew he could technically ask her now, but Suki was there and he knew she would not hesitate to make fun of him for being a nerd- she’d proven that much already, even though he’d only been on the ship for an hour. She shrugged, and he figured that was as enthusiastic of a yes as he’d get, so he turned to ask Suki, “So you make weapons, you said?”

She nodded. “Earth Systemers have a really strong connection to metal and earth and stuff, and this always came really naturally to me. I made myself a little forge in one of the spare bunk rooms. It’s not much, but it’s enough that I can make us some good stuff, usually with Toph’s help. I made myself these fans, for example.” She reached to her belt and pulled out the two thin objects he’d noticed earlier. With a flick, they both expanded into sturdy fans that were a pale yellow, with gold ribs running through it. “They look like harmless paper fans, but hold them.”

Sokka took them gingerly and grinned with wild excitement. “They’re solid iron?” She smirked proudly and raised her brows while she shrugged a single shoulder. “Wow. That’s incredible, Suki. It’s truly brilliant- I mean, it’s been painted to look totally harmless, so I bet you can take it into heavily fortified areas without anyone thinking twice about it. It wouldn’t be until you were actually fighting that anyone would realize that they’re actually a weapon! And using iron… that must make these incredibly durable. I mean, you could use these defensively to block attacks or offensively to injure. The craftsmanship on these is amazing, too! When you open and close them, there isn't any sticking or anything-” He paused and realized he had been rambling, and Suki and Toph were giggling at him. He blushed and changed the topic, handing the fans back to her. “I use boomerangs myself, as well as an energy sword.” 

“Boomerangs?” she asked excitedly.

“They’re really convenient for me because if I’m fixing something while we’re under fire on a ground mission, I can’t hold a blaster and use both hands to fix it at the same time. With a boomerang, I have time to keep working. Mine are also pretty special in that they can be just standard metal, or I can make it so that they’re surrounded by an energy field similar to that of the beams blasters put out- same with my sword.”

“Sokka, that’s brilliant. Would you be willing to show me how to use one?”

“Yeah, that would be awesome." The conversation lulled slightly, so he took the moment to ask tentatively, “So, Zuko…” He trailed off, suddenly unsure of what to ask, there were so many questions floating around in his head.  _ What’s his story? Can we trust him? Is he always so standoffish? _

Suki seemed to know what he was thinking, and grimaced slightly. “We don’t tend to tell his story to others. It’s not… He’s been through a lot, and if he wants to share it, that’s up to him and the relationship you have.” At his dejected face, she added, “I know he comes across as being gruff and rude and gloomy, but he’s really an amazing captain and person. Definitely gruff and gloomy, don’t get me wrong- but he cares deeply about our crew and the rebellion. He’s gotten us out of more tough scrapes than I can count, and he hates the Empire as much as- if not more than- the rest of us.”

Toph nodded. “He’s one of the best strategizers, pilots, and hand to hand combat fighters in the rebellion. He just takes a while to warm up to new people, sometimes.”

Sokka hummed noncommittally- he couldn’t get the glare he had shot them out of his head and doubt swirled in his gut, but they’d been a crew for a long time. They knew him well after so many years, so he couldn’t discount their words, even if he suspected they didn't apply to him.

“Don’t worry, Sokka. He’ll warm up to you and you can ask him all of these things yourself,” Aang reassured him. “You guys will get along great!”

All he could do was hope Aang was right.

☆☆☆

“We aren’t often recruited to fly combat missions,” Zuko explained as they ate a boring dinner of flavorless grey rebellion rations that night (Sokka knew they were packed with protein, nutrients, and vitamins to help combat bone loss and all the other diseases that came with being in space for long periods of time, but did they have to be so gross?). “Like Aang said earlier, we’re more rescue and relief, reconnaissance, messengers… that sort of thing. We do sometimes run into trouble, but Aang and I try to get us out of it as quickly as possible. The place we find the most trouble is on the ground- APPA isn’t the most subtle of ships and we’re very identifiable people- so always keep your eyes out and a low profile.”

He and Katara both nodded, so Zuko pulled up a holomap from the projector in the middle of the table. With a few small hand motions, a dotted red line appeared from the icon of APPA, leading to an isolated dot on the far side of the galaxy.

“Right now we’re headed to a small trade planet called the Oasis. It’s kind of a shady place since it’s outside of anyone’s jurisdiction, even the Empire’s, making it a safe haven for criminals and deserters… The scum of the galaxy, some would say. A lot of bounty hunters pass through as a result. There’s a mix of them who work for the rebellion, the Empire, or even just who’s paying the most, so it’s vital to keep our heads down while we’re there, and not to trust anybody.”

“Is having a bounty on your head a common occurrence?” Sokka asked jokingly, chuckling slightly as he ate another spoonful of rations. 

Zuko kept his gaze on his rations and said shortly, “Just for me.”

When he realized Zuko was being serious, he inhaled so sharply that he choked on his food. After a brief spell of vicious coughing, he asked, voice strangled and tight, “What did you do?”

The captain looked up finally and fixed his bright eyes on Sokka. “I ran away from the Empire.”

Katara sent a swift kick to his shin, and he suddenly felt very, very stupid. Of course Fire Folk on the side of the rebellion would have a bounty on their heads- the Empire would never just let them leave freely. “Oh. Right.”

His sister rolled her eyes and looked back to Zuko. “So, if it’s such a dangerous place, why go?”

“Someone there has intel for us. A rebellion contact named June.”

Suki leaned forward. “Katara, Sokka, you guys can stick with me and keep an eye out for trouble. Toph will go with Zuko to meet our contact, while Aang stays onboard in case of trouble.”

Katara nodded. “Alright. When will we get there?”

“Even traveling through hyperspace, it’ll take about a day. We should be there tomorrow afternoon,” Aang supplied. “So if you want to start getting settled, you have time.”

His sister nodded gratefully. “Great, that’ll be perfect.”

Zuko stood, finished with his meal. “Right then, we should let you finish settling in.” He turned to go, but paused in the doorway. When he looked over his shoulder at them, his features had softened into something almost like a smile. “It’s good to have you both on board.”

☆☆☆

As soon as Sokka set foot on the Oasis, his boots were flooded with the fine yellow sand that covered the planet and he began to sweat. The desert planet was a sweltering, light washed place as a result of the two suns hanging high in the sky, and Sokka squinted as he glanced around curiously. Already, he could tell that Zuko’s assessment that it was an unregulated, shady place was fair. There was no clear airfield or landing strip, just a smattering of rusty, dirty, and poorly cared for ships that were falling apart in the heat and sand. 

People and droids in varying levels of rags, finery, armor, and civilian clothes milled about, and Sokka easily spotted three people who were more than likely bounty hunters lingering by the door to one of the buildings, their faces covered by armored helmets. The simple establishment in front of them, the only thing besides sand dunes for as far as the eye could see, was really just a few buildings constructed out of terra and a small collection of tents, from which vendors sold various products.

“There’s really nothing like the Oasis,” Suki said dryly. “I think there’s already sand in my mouth.”

Toph sighed. “I hate this place. It’s so hot that the vibrations just get all fucked up. And Momo always gets all weird with the sand, but I need him to help me around.”

Next to her, the droid chirped in a way that Sokka assumed was meant to be vicious cursing about the sand that was no doubt working its way into his joints.

“I’ll fix you up, buddy, don’t worry,” he said absentmindedly, still looking around the rundown trading post. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Zuko announced as he came down the entry ramp. He was wearing a cloak with the hood pulled up and a black mask covering his mouth, so he was practically unrecognizable. With his sheath across his back and his face covered, Sokka thought he looked a bit like a bandit... a super grouchy bandit. 

He didn’t even look disturbed by the heat, and he had to remind himself that Zuko was Fire Folk- they had genetically evolved over the course of millenia to withstand the heat of a star system, the same way Alignans and Nerrivians had in order to withstand the freezing temperatures of their ice planets. Still, he couldn’t help but find it a little unfair that he was already drenched in sweat while Zuko seemed to be perfectly fine, natural adaptations or not. 

The vindictive part of him that was still upset over how he'd greeted them yesterday wanted to go to Nerrivik with him, if only to see just how well Zuko would handle the cold. He let himself take a long moment to enjoy the image of the captain shivering while he stood there, perfectly fine, then focused his mind on the mission at hand once more.

The group took off, trudging through the sand, and he was relieved to see that no one even spared Zuko a second glance. Even the bounty hunters by the door of the building they walked into, which was apparently a dingy, grime covered tavern, didn’t bat an eye at him. 

“You three stay here. It should be just a few minutes,” Zuko ordered, before he, Toph, and Momo disappeared into a back room.

“Do you two want any cactus juice?” Suki asked, motioning to the bartender to get her a drink. 

Sokka groaned and Katara burst out laughing. “You do not want to give Sokka cactus juice,” she said through her giggles. “He becomes absolutely useless.”

“I can hold my wine just fine, but give me that stuff and I’m automatically wasted.”

Suki laughed as she tossed her drink back, then leaned comfortably against the counter. Even though she looked distracted, he could tell she was tense, ready to leap into action at the first sign of trouble, so he followed her lead. “Well, I guess you won’t be partaking in the fun, then.”

“Definitely not. I don’t think it would make a good impression on Zuko if I showed up drunk off my ass talking about giant mushrooms, the way I did last time I had it.”

“You would have gotten a kick out of it, Suki. He was…” Katara shook her head in amusement instead of finishing.

After a few more minutes of idle chatter (most of which was Katara telling Suki about his adventure with cactus juice), Toph and Zuko emerged from the back room, moving quickly. 

“Come on, “ he said urgently. “We need to get out of here.”

Suki straightened up and threw a copper piece down on the counter. “What is it?”

“The bounty hunters were tipped off that I’d be coming. They know I’m here.” Sokka’s heart began racing as he darted his eyes to the door they had just emerged from, which had banged open as several bounty hunters spilled through it and began heading their way.

“You mean-”

“June set us up.”

“Guys… We should go.” He gestured to the other people in the bar, all of whom were staring at them and rising to their feet, hands hovering over blasters, swords, and whatever other weapons they had, and the group of bounty hunters was getting closer with every second that passed.

Zuko’s eyes flicked around the room and he nodded sharply. “Seems that way, doesn’t it?”

Sokka turned to them and with a two finger salute, snarked, “Sorry everyone, we’d love to stay and chat, but we’ve got places to be.”

Then, in unison they turned on their heels and suddenly the five of them were sprinting out of the tavern as fast as they could. They ran past the bounty hunters who had been at the door and across the sand to APPA, the mob hot on their heels. Aang must have seen them coming because the engines fired up as they approached, blasting sand towards the crowd chasing them. There was the sound of numerous blasters being charged behind them, and Sokka turned just in time to see the laser bolts careening towards them.

“Watch out!” he called, diving to the ground to avoid getting hit. He fumbled for his own blaster then leapt back to his feet and fired at the hunters a few times to stall them. He also flung a boomerang into the crowd, taking out two of their attackers at once. Zuko was firing at them as well, and Katara was covering Toph with careful shots from her own two blasters. Suki had pulled out her fans, which she held in front of her with a wild gleam in her amber eyes. 

“You guys go! I’ve got this. Cover me once you’re on the ramp!” She yelled at them, over the roar of the engines.

They sprinted the rest of the distance to APPA, sending shots over their shoulders every once in a while, but for the most part, Suki had it handled. She was dodging and weaving around through the sand effortlessly, using the solid iron of her fans to deflect the shots back into the crowd which they came from. When they were on the ramp, Zuko, Katara, and Sokka turned and started firing around her. Suki saw the blasts coming from their direction and fell back, sprinting towards them with her fans held behind her as a makeshift shield.

As soon as she was on the entry ramp, Toph smashed the control to close it. The ship took off immediately after, the engines roaring as Aang flew them out of orbit.

“Is everyone okay?” Katara asked once they’d all caught their breath. “Any injuries or anything?”

From where she had collapsed on the ground, Suki shook her head tiredly. “I think we’re all fine, right?” There were nods of assent, then she asked what they were all wondering. “Zuko, what happened? Why did June betray us?”

He shrugged, seemingly unfazed by the fact that his contact had just sold him out. “You know June, she only cares about herself, her ship, and money. She must have thought she could split the prize with the hunters if she told them I was coming.”

“So there was no intel?” Sokka asked.

“Nothing we didn’t already know,” Toph answered, clearly frustrated.

“Shit,” he grimaced. Trying to help, or to contribute, or to just… say something, he asked, “Are you going to tell my dad about June? Would she sell any other rebels out if they went to her?”

Zuko was studying Sokka carefully, but he couldn’t tell what for. After a moment, he said dismissively, “I’ll send him a comm. You don’t need to worry about it.” 

He held up his hands appeasingly and said evenly, “Okay, sorry. I was just trying to help.”

With a deep frown and a step towards Sokka that placed them just inches away from each other, he said venomously, “You don’t need too. That’s not your job, nor your business. Just because your dad is General Hakoda, that doesn’t give you any special status on my crew. Got it?”

His mouth dropped open to respond, but Aang’s voice interrupted any retort Sokka could have made- not that it mattered, since he realized he didn’t really know what to say to Zuko basically telling him to fuck off. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine Twinkle Toes,” Toph responded quickly, before he and Zuko could say anything else to each other. “We’re heading your way now.”

Toph apparently meant everyone except Zuko, because when Sokka looked away from her to glance at him again, he was already rounding the corner that would lead him to his private quarters. He just sighed, a mess of anger and disappointment filling his heart at the fact that Zuko so obviously didn’t like him. 

Suki saw his defeated slump and patted his shoulder, but didn’t say anything. There really wasn’t anything to say, he supposed, besides that apparently they wouldn’t be getting along great, the way Aang had been so sure they would.

“What was that about?” Katara asked him under her breath as they made their way to check in with Aang.

He wished he had an answer. Because within one day, he already felt like he had met his best friends through Suki, Toph, and Aang- they all got along immediately, clicking together like pieces of a puzzle. And then there was Zuko, who, when Sokka tried to help or even spoke, acted like it was the last thing he wanted. Realistically, he knew that it was unreasonable to expect that they’d get along immediately. But that response… That was clear disdain. 

He sighed again and mumbled dully, “I wish I knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... There it is! I really hoped you enjoyed it. I'm really curious to know people's thoughts, so please let me know by leaving kudos/comments and checking out my tumblr, [@zukosadragon-ace](https://zukosadragon-ace.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'm so excited for the rest of this story <3
> 
> ~ Chapter Guide ~
> 
> URSF: the United Republic Star Fleet, AKA the rebellion; a joint effort between the Earth and Water Systems to fight back against the Empire  
> The Empire: the common name used to refer to the Fire System, which is trying to take over the galaxy  
> Water System: a small binary system consisting of two planets, Nerrivik (Southern Water Tribe) and Alignak (Northern Water Tribe)  
> Nerrivik: an Inuit deity (also known as Sedna); the sea-mother and patron of fishermen and hunters  
> Alignak: an Inuit lunar deity; god of weather, water, tides, and eclipses  
> Fire System: a medium sized star system  
> Earth System: the largest solar system in the galaxy  
> Ba Sing Se: the largest planet in the galaxy; one of the last major URSF strongholds  
> Kyoshi: a small Earth System planet that is an incredibly important planet to the rebellion  
> Air Nebula: a large nebula where the four Air planets were; destroyed at the beginning of the war  
> Anila: Southern Air Temple; Named after one of the Vasus, Hindu gods of the elements of the cosmos  
> Rudra: Northern Air Temple; A Rigvedic deity associated with wind and storms; also seen as a healer and source of 1,000 remedies  
> Begtse: Western Air Temple; Named after the pre-Mongolian Buddhist spirit guardian; the lord of war and a protector  
> Varuna: Eastern Air Temple; Named after a Hindu god; ruler of the sky and upholder of cosmic and moral law  
> The Oasis: a shady planet outside both Empire and rebellion jurisdiction; a safe haven for criminals, bounty hunters, people on the run from something, etc.


	2. The Signal

About a week later they stopped in Senlin, a small village on the Earth System planet Hei Bai, to restock on fuel and food. It was a small place, just a collection of a few wooden huts surrounded by thick green forests and sparkling blue lakes, but it was one of the most important places in the galaxy. The villagers made their living farming various species of pentapi, small five armed aquatic creatures that were used for food and medicine, and shipping them across the galaxy. Because Senlin was a vital part of the intergalactic economy, it had been able to negotiate a deal with the Empire- they would supply their forces with pentapi, but only as long as their village wasn’t occupied and they were permitted to run their trade system their own way. The Empire had no choice but to agree, and Senlin used their amnesty to support the rebellion right under their noses. It was a common stop for rebels passing through the Earth System, so they were confident that they’d be safe, unlike at the Oasis.

Aang had told Sokka excitedly about the Senlin market, explaining that it had some of the best food that they could stock up on. While he didn’t eat meat or fish himself, he seemed sure that Sokka would love the various kinds of pentapus dishes they offered, and he was eagerly looking forward to seeing if that was true. 

When he stepped off the ship with Aang, he was relieved to find that the air was much more pleasant than the Oasis thanks to the forest. He was also surprised to see that the market was much bigger than what he had been expecting. He’d thought it was just going to sell a few different types of food- mostly made of pentapus- from the way Aang had described it, but he could see stall after stall full of clothes, jewelry, tools, spare parts, as well as all the food he’d promised and more.

“Aang, you totally undersold this place! There’s so much shopping,” he nudged him with an elbow, grinning wildly.

He beamed in response. “Yeah, I wanted to surprise you since you mentioned how much you love shopping. Come on, I’ll take you to my favorite spots!”

The group split up, Aang and Sokka going one direction while Suki and Katara went off arm in arm in another, and Toph and Zuko busied themselves with refueling the ship. They wandered from booth to booth, pointing out different items to each other excitedly, and Sokka quickly found himself pulling out his pouch of credits to purchase items. He kept it reasonable, of course, since he was living on a ship with limited space, but it didn’t stop him from buying a new tunic, a small carving of a black and white bear that the merchant explained was the spirit the planet was named after, and a few different tools that he had been wanting to help with repairs. He also got several different pentapus dishes, and found that Aang hadn't lied- they truly were delicious, with each of the three plates he got having been prepared in different ways; one had been fried, one had been grilled, and the last was raw.

As he chewed his pentapi sashimi, they made their way to the next stall, which was selling a wide array of accessories.

They began looking through the products, and Aang asked with fake nonchalance, “So, Sokka, how are you liking being on APPA with the crew?”

“It’s been good. You guys are all great,” he responded genuinely as he eyed an attractive deep green, yellow, and brown bag with a matching belt. “I mean, Toph punches me a lot but she’s been awesome to work with. But some of the jokes she tells… It’s a miracle we get anything done, honestly. Suki knocks me flat on my ass in about thirty seconds but she’s awesome, too. Some of the stuff she’s built in that little forge is absolutely amazing. I think it could be a lot more effective, though, so I’m going to work with her on making some changes to make that happen. And you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, just in general. It’s been really great to get to know you, Aang, and I’m grateful that we’ve become friends. I do have one complaint, though.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Calling us the ‘crew.’ I mean, I just think that there’s just something better. Like… You’re the pilot, right, so we could be the Gaang!” 

He was proud of himself for thinking of it on the spot like that, and to his satisfaction Aang burst out laughing.

“I actually think you might be onto something there. That’s pretty good,” he said. He fell silent shortly after, though, and began picking through a bowl of earrings. Sokka began to suspect that unless he had pierced his ears in the last few minutes, he hadn’t answered Aang’s question the way he wanted. 

Another minute went by, then, sure enough, he asked, “And what about Zuko?”

Sokka, in a very deliberate act of deflection, picked up the bag and belt he’d been eyeing and held them up to Aang. “What do you think about this set? I kind of want to get it. Everyone needs a good bag, and what’s better than a good bag that comes with a matching belt?”

His friend gave him a pointed look that said he knew _exactly_ what Sokka was doing, but nodded. “I like it. You should get it. But Sokka, I’m serious. What about Zuko? Is he still being-”

As if summoned by Aang saying his name, Zuko’s voice called from behind them, “The ship is fueled. Let’s go.”

Sokka nodded mindlessly, fishing out his credit pouch. “Yeah, we’ll be there in a minute, I’m just going to buy this bag and belt.” 

He turned to show it to Zuko, who raised an unimpressed eyebrow and eyed it in undisguised disgust. 

“That bag is hideous, Sokka. You shouldn’t waste your money on it, or space on APPA.”

He glared at him- he was just trying to be nice, and still Zuko found some issue with it. Which he didn't understand, because  it was just a bag and therefore easy enough to lie about liking. But no, Zuko just _had_ to go and be rude about the bag for no apparent reason other than the fact that Sokka liked it.

He snapped back in an embarrassingly high pitched voice, “No, it isn’t. You just clearly have the eyesight of an angler-shark.” He turned to the vendor, who looked very bored, and said pointedly, “He didn’t mean that. This bag is awesome.”

Zuko rolled his eyes in annoyance, not even bothering to respond. He turned to go and, without looking back, called out in a sharp tone, “Just make it quick. We need to get going.”

He stalked off, and Sokka turned to Aang, who was watching the captain walk away with a slump to his shoulders. " _ That’s _ how it’s going with Zuko. Every interaction we have, he snaps at me. It’s as if my very existence annoys him,” he fumed, before handing over the credits to pay for his bag.

As they walked back, Aang said suddenly, “He isn’t usually like this.”

“Thanks Aang, that makes me feel a lot better.”

“I didn’t mean it like that! There’s been a lot of bounty hunters on his tail recently, more than usual, and I think he’s frustrated and is taking it out on everyone, because he’s been snippier with me, too. That’s not how we usually are with each other. I mean, he was one of the first people I met when I got to base, and we’ve been best friends since then. We know each other better than anyone else, but he won’t even talk to me about what’s going on in his head right now. Whenever I ask, he just shuts me down. I was just trying to say that I don’t think it’s you.”

“Oh. Maybe.” He supposed that made sense- if he was constantly under the threat of being captured or killed and carted back to the Fire System, he supposed he might be a little snippy too, but he had a suspicion there was more to it. It was like there was this spark between them, and whenever they were near each other, it burst into flames and usually ended with Zuko snapping at Sokka, which only served to make him angry and quick to snap back.

Either way, it didn’t matter, because he’d come up with a plan: Zuko clearly didn’t want him around, so he’d make himself scarce. 

He figured it was a good plan- because he’d be avoiding him, Zuko wouldn’t get the chance to be an asshole, and since he wouldn’t get the chance, Sokka wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that he was an asshole. 

All in all, it seemed like a sound plan and so the minute they got back on board, he put it into action.

☆☆☆

After a few weeks of Operation Avoid Zuko, the plan was working… Partially.

He and Toph explored every inch of the ship together, from top to bottom, and fixed a wide array of problems of varying degrees of severity. She had a sharp tongue and never held back any punches (verbally or physically- she always said it was her sign of affection, but Sokka suspected he might also just be a punchable person). She followed along with whatever crazy ideas he had, even presenting her own to match, and with her raunchy jokes, light hearted teasing, and quick mind, she was a good friend. He was grateful to have her by his side, and with the steady flow of conversation and Momo’s chirping, it was therapeutic to work next to her. 

It helped, also, that APPA truly was a beautiful ship with intricate technology and features, despite being over one hundred years old. It was a challenge for his mind, and when he was working, it felt less like avoidance and more like doing what he was  _ actually _ there to do.

Aang was like the little brother he never knew he wanted- they goofed off together, definitely, but he was also just a fun person to talk to. When Zuko wasn’t in the cockpit with him, Sokka often found himself sitting in there to talk to him. He gave disturbingly wise advice for someone who was technically only twenty-two, and he also told amazing stories about growing up as an Air Nomad and traveling freely between planets in a galaxy that was far different from the way it was now. It was soothing to sit up there with him and watch as distant stars and planets streamed past them, little more than blurs of light and color, and he found himself spending as much time there as he could. 

Suki also quickly became one of his best friends. They sparred together every morning, and everything became a vicious battle to see who would win, since they were both highly competitive. It was a light hearted, though, with each trying to one up the other by pushing themselves harder to do more reps or stretch the furthest or win whatever competition they were having. Suki had shown him the basics of how to use her fans, and in return he showed her how to use his boomerangs. He took great joy in showing off his mastery of the weapons by sending them flying around the training room without ever hitting the walls, while Suki failed time and time again. They laughed a lot when they sparred, and Sokka could feel himself becoming a better and better fighter everyday with her help. She also came to sit by him while he worked, or he’d go visit her in the forge, so they spent hours just talking to each other and swapping stories of growing up on their home planets, their years of training, and comparing Sokka’s role as an engineer in the NSF to Suki’s adventures on APPA. 

They were easily the best friends he’d ever had, and he spent so much time with them that he didn’t really even have to think about avoiding Zuko- it just happened naturally.

The reason the plan was only partially working, though, was because whenever he actually  _ had _ to see Zuko, such as in the common room for meals or when he was in the training room with him and Suki- even though he could ignore him or just give him the bare minimum of attention- it was like he was being drawn to him. He continually tried to talk to him, and he didn’t know why- to get on his good side? To claim they had at least one positive interaction? To make Zuko see he wasn’t as awful as he clearly thought? Whatever the reason, he just ended up setting himself up for a fight with the captain, over and over again.

Whenever they spoke, he turned to his usual methods of charming people that had never failed before, like joking around, but Zuko never even cracked a smile- he just told Sokka to stop. He tried sharing stories from his childhood to establish a common ground and he asked about Zuko’s, too, to see if maybe he was talking too much about himself and it was off putting- but he would just snap at him to get back to work with a furious glare. He even tried simply sitting there in silence, a task that wasn’t very easy for him, and yet Zuko still seemed perpetually annoyed by his presence. 

Where he had an easy camaraderie with Aang, Suki, and Toph, with Sokka and Katara (though for some reason- perhaps fear of his sister’s wrath- he wasn’t as rude to her), he was either stilted and awkward or snapping orders at them. He was aggravating and borderline rude, constantly storming away from them, even when they hadn’t done anything besides greet him. It was frustrating and demoralizing, and still something in his mind seemed determined to become friends with him, so he kept trying when he got the chance. 

“I mean, do you think we said something to him when we came onboard?” he asked his sister eventually. He was sitting on a spinning stool in the med bay, while Katara bustled around, returning the things she’d used for his fingers to their proper places; he’d been working on repairing the engine, but he’d ended up burning his fingertips slightly, so he went to her for a salve and some gauze. 

Pushing himself around in circles on the chair, he continued, theorizing out loud, “He won’t even give us a chance and I just can’t figure out why. It’s gotta be because we said something, right?” He stopped spinning, and pointing at her, whispered conspiratorially, “Or do you think it’s because he’s  _ actually _ still on the side of the Empire, and he fears that my brilliant deductive skills will expose his nefarious plot?”

“Sokka, come on. You know that’s not true,” Katara stopped him, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

“I know,” he sighed, letting his shoulders fall in frustrated defeat. “It’s easier to come up with an outlandish theory than actually figure out what we did. Or I guess what  _ I  _ did, since for some reason he seems to like you more than me.”

“Wow, thank you Sokka, for the insult. What a way to thank me for fixing your hands,” she deadpanned at his accidental insult. Before he could respond, though, she was moving on. “Anyways, we did react negatively when we saw he’s from the Fire System. I’m sure that’s part of it. I can’t say I’d be too happy if the new people on my crew showed up just to immediately recoil and assume the worst of me. It doesn’t do a lot for trust,” she reasoned as she began trying to shove bandages into an already overflowing chest. 

“Are you sure I can’t help you?” he asked, watching her struggle.

“It’s fine, I got it. Also, after the trip to the Oasis, you kind of… Well, I know you were trying to help, but maybe he thought you were trying to tell him how to do his job and got defensive. I mean, we’re still green, while he’s been a captain for five years.”

He sighed, though he knew she had a point. He had just been trying to help keep other rebels safe, but maybe Zuko had thought he was questioning him or doubting his abilities as a captain. Which hadn’t been the case, and maybe if he had taken the time to get to know Sokka he’d have realized he had good intentions- but that hadn’t happened, and now they could barely be around each other long enough to eat even just a bowl of rations without it turning into a quarrel.

“I just don’t want things to be so tense and awkward between us. Whenever Dad talks about his times flying for the rebellion, he talks about how the people on his crew became his best friends. We already have that with Suki, Toph, and Aang... Although you have a little more than friendship with Aang, if you ask me,” he teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

She blushed bright red and scoffed, “Sokka!” as she threw a bandage at him that he was barely able to dodge, something he knew from years of teasing her meant he was right. He laughed at her reaction, knowing she’d just confirmed his suspicions about her crush on the pilot. 

He spared her just this once, though, and continued seriously, “Anyways, we’ll also work together better if we all get along. I’m trying to facilitate that, but he gives me nothing.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it’ll just take time.”

He opened his mouth, but was interrupted as the door to the med bay slid open and Suki poked her head in. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but Zuko wants to see you in the engine room, Sokka.”

She had a blank expression, which Sokka knew meant Zuko wasn’t in a good mood.

Which usually meant their interaction would end in yelling. He sighed. 

“Great. Can’t wait to find out what I did wrong this time,” he muttered as he stood slowly. “See you on the flip side, so long as Captain Jerkface doesn’t strangle me.”

“I’m sorry, Sokka. I wish I could tell you what’s going on with him, but I don’t know,” Suki echoed Aang’s reassurances from Senlin as she pat his back comfortingly. “But he won’t strangle you. He knows how good you are at what you do, and it may not seem like it, but I know that he’s glad to have you onboard.”

He snorted but gave her a grateful smile, and went to face the captain.

☆☆☆

He found Zuko waiting at the hole in the ship where Toph had helped him pull up the metal grating that covered the engine, staring at the tools and disassembled pieces laying around it with his arms crossed and hips cocked. He couldn’t see his face very well, but he could tell his mouth was set in a hard glare, and Sokka schooled his expression in an attempt to hide how nervous he was.

“Hey Zuko. Suki said you wanted to see me?”

“Does what you’re doing here have anything to do with why we’re grounded and unable to move on right now?” 

He didn’t even so much as turn his head to acknowledge Sokka’s greeting, and he swallowed down his frustration- he wasn’t sure why he expected any different, really. 

“Uh, yeah. I was fixing the engine. I noticed the other day when we jumped into hyperspace that it was a little lurchy and slower than it should be. I asked Aang about it and he said that it’s been like that for a while now, so Toph and I pulled up the grating so I could take a look.”

“Did you figure out what it was, then?”

“Yeah.” He crouched down, Zuko following his lead, and pointed at the different parts of the engine as he spoke. “This is an ion propulsion engine, right? So electrons are emitted from this cathode here into the main chamber, where they’re charged up when the gas interacts with them to make them into ions. Then they pass through these two grids here, one positive and one negative, which expels them out into space to propel us forward. Those two plates are essentially a gate, keeping the electrons from getting out until they become fully charged ions. The positive plate got bent just enough so that even though we could still get into hyperspace and travel quickly, some electrons were getting out before they could get ionized so it wasn’t as powerful. That’s what was causing the lurch- inconsistencies in the thrust as a result of decreased power. And then while I was looking at it, I also noticed that some of the components of the engine were rusting, so I had to replace them, too, which meant we weren’t able to turn on the engine today.” 

Zuko glanced at him sideways, face unreadable, and Sokka shifted anxiously, his hands drifting to pick at a loose thread on the knee of his pants. “I’m sorry, should I have… asked? Before doing that? I know you’re the captain, so I guess I should have. I talked to Aang about it though, and he said to go for it, so I did. Or should I have not done it at all? I thought it would have been better to do it now, before we actually definitely need to be able to get out of somewhere quickly, but...”

“No!” Zuko interrupted his nonsensical rambling with surprising force. He cleared his throat and repeated himself. “No, don’t apologize. This is really good. I was just… Wondering. Our last engineer was… He wasn’t very good, so I had to keep close tabs on what he did. Maybe just give me a heads up next time, though?” He asked the question wryly, with a lopsided grin on his face and a small laugh. It was the first of its type Sokka had ever heard from Zuko, and it was such a strange sound coming from the typically gloomy captain that he blinked a few times in surprise, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating the small quirk of his lips. 

“Uh, yeah. Okay, then. Good. I’m glad to hear that,” he said dumbly. “And definitely, I’ll let you know. I can get it finished up tomorrow, I’ve just been getting some burns on my fingertips from welding and cuts from cleaning off the rust, so I had to take a break.” He waggled his fingers at him, showing off his bandages.

Zuko’s face wrinkled a little in what Sokka could only describe as worry, which just… Looked wrong on his face, especially directed towards him. “I can get you a pair of gloves, if that would help.” 

He blinked again, feeling as though he was in some dystopian world where he and Zuko didn’t hate each other. He wasn’t going to turn the offer down, though, so he said, “Sure. I mean, I’m used to it, so no worries if you can’t get them, but I could probably work a lot faster if I wasn’t always worrying about hurting my fingers.”

The corners of the captain’s mouth lifted into the barest hint of a smile. “Alright. I’ll… work on that then. I’ll see you later.” He turned to go, but stopped at the door and turned to Sokka with a strange expression, some soft emotion that was alien but not unwelcome, on his face. “You’re doing good work here, Sokka. Thank you.” 

Sokka’s lips parted slightly in surprise, because that was most definitely something akin to genuine kindness on his face. It made him look soft and approachable, like someone that Sokka would be friends with, and it highlighted the beauty he undoubtedly had- 

He stopped himself. Zuko may look beautiful right now, but it didn’t change the fact that for over a month, he’d been an asshole to him. 

As if proving his point, Zuko straightened up, his face schooled back into his usual scowl and he snapped, “Just finish it up tomorrow. It’s dangerous to stay in one place for too long, and we have places we need to be.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Sokka alone in the engine room staring after him in confusion, wondering what the hell had just happened.

☆☆☆

That night, a pair of brown leather gloves showed up on his bunk.

☆☆☆

They were being chased through the galaxy. Again.

The ship jerked wildly, Aang and Zuko clearly trying to do their best evasive movements, and Sokka couldn’t help but laugh slightly- albeit bitterly- at the thought that for being a ship that mostly carried cargo and intel from place to place, they found themselves in a lot of tough situations like this. It seemed like they were constantly racing back to the ship or across the galaxy to escape bounty hunters and Empire forces. 

They always got away, of course, but rarely without taking damage; Aang and Zuko were a formidable team in the cockpit, but even they could only avoid so many laser beams from blasters and cannons before a hit landed on them that managed to damage the ship somehow. So far, Sokka had already fixed the shields six times, the main power grid twice, and the sensors three times. 

The ship chasing them, a black Empire transport with a highly advanced weapons system that rapidly fired out super charged ion bolts, had been on their tail since they left Chin Village, where they stopped for emergency fuel. It was a known Empire hotspot, but they’d been desperate and had to stop. Katara and Sokka had refueled the ship since they were much less likely to be recognized, and they had taken off immediately after with apparently no issue. Not even a minute after, though, Toph had noticed the transport appear on the sensor, and now they were here, fleeing through the galaxy once again.

It had been fine at first, but eventually the other ship had hit them hard enough that it had taken down their shields and knocked out their main power system, leaving them vulnerable and open to more attacks that could do a lot worse. Sokka had sprinted down to the engine room immediately and gotten to work repatching the system, but it was slow going with the combination of the low light provided by the backup power system and all the jostling that was happening. 

“Sokka, how is it coming?” Toph’s voice crackled through his tablet. Her stress was clear and he knew it was because with the sensors down, she really was blind, unable to sense where the other ship was located or tell Aang and Zuko when it was getting close or attacking. He cursed as the wires he was fiddling with slid out of position as the ship lurched again.

“It would be better if the ship would stay steady!” he responded snippily.

Zuko’s voice joined the fray, sour and clearly angry. “We’re trying, okay? I’d like to see you up here, trying to avoid this guy-”

Oh. So  _ that  _ was how Zuko wanted to play it? Just because he was an engineer didn’t mean he couldn’t fly a ship, and the fact that Zuko seemed to think he couldn’t made him see red. Forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, he snapped back, “I’ll have you know, I am a brilliant pilot. I could  _ absolutely _ do it, and I could do it better than you-”

“Just fix it, Sokka,” Aang interrupted their argument. “We can’t keep evading him like this, and the targeting systems are offline. We need to take him out, or at least damage his ship so that we can get away.”

He sighed, turning back to the panel. “I know, I know. I’m trying. I’m almost done, I promise.”

As the wires finally slid into their proper positions, he pushed them into the panel hard, then let his fingers fly across his tablet, punching in codes and commands as fast as he could. Quickly, he reached into the control panel and began flipping switches and punching buttons, almost faster than his brain could process. After a moment, the lights flickered, then there was a loud beep from his tablet as the system fully rebooted and the ship returned to full power. 

He sighed and leaned his forehead against the wall. “It’s done. You should have full power now.”

“I’ve got him in my sights,” Suki announced just a moment after. Sokka could almost picture her, tongue between her teeth as she steered the guns so that they were locked on their companion and the smirk that appeared when she had it lined up just right.

“Take the shot,” Zuko ordered. 

There was a cheer over the headset from four different voices- Zuko’s obviously missing- and then Suki’s voice said, “I got him. Let’s get away while we still can.”

“Slipping into hyperspace now,” Zuko agreed.

There was the familiar roar of the engines, the rumble of the ship, and then they were accelerating rapidly. Through the small window above his head, Sokka could see the bright streaks of light, a swirling storm of color indicating they had entered hyperspace.

When he walked up to the upper deck of the ship, he found everyone crowded around the cockpit. Zuko and Aang had swiveled around in their chairs, while Suki leaned against the wall, Katara sat on the ground next to Aang’s chair, and Toph was sprawled across the floor. Sokka joined Suki against the wall and she smiled. Zuko was in the middle of speaking, though he only caught the end.

“-I always tell them, no good comes out of going to Chin Village.”

Aang protested, “I love that place!”

He rolled his eyes, though it was fonder than it was when he aimed it at Sokka. Bitterness swirled in his gut. “Of course you do. They have unfried dough.”

The younger man nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! It’s so good! It just falls apart.” Everyone gave him an unimpressed look and he just sighed. “Unbelievable. My crewmates have no taste.”

“It’s so…  _ chewy _ ,” Sokka scrunched up his nose. It was actually worse than chewy- they were absolutely disgusting and slimy, but Aang already looked so crushed that Sokka couldn’t hurt him more.

“Thank you!” Zuko exclaimed. Clearly not sharing Sokka’s hesitation to hurt his feelings, he said firmly, “They are not good, Aang.”

“I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, and that’ll have to be it.”

Katara patted Aang’s hand gently. “It’s okay Aang. I didn’t think it was that bad. It wasn't my favorite, but I can see why you’d like it.”

He beamed at her. “Thank you, Katara!”

Both of their cheeks had turned bright red, and Sokka smirked at the interaction, knowing he’d have to be sure to tease her about it later. If pressed, he’d admit that whatever was going on between was cute, but until then, he would keep making fun of her.

Suki looked at him with a raised eyebrow and he nodded slightly, knowing she was thinking the same thing about them as he was. They burst into giggles simultaneously. 

Sokka stopped when he saw Zuko looking at him, a strange contemplative look on his face. It was something he’d been doing a lot lately since he’d fix the engine nearly a month ago- just staring at Sokka, clearly deep in thought with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes. When he saw he had noticed, the captain blushed and stood up from his chair hurriedly. 

“Um, well. Good work, everyone. I’m going to go… make a report. Or something. Yeah. Goodbye.” The captain disappeared around the corner, four curious sets of eyes watching him go.

Odd, but… the captain was strange, so Sokka just shrugged it off.

“Did anyone else notice he went the opposite direction of his room?” Toph asked.

“Yeah, he’s definitely been acting weird recently,” Aang nodded his agreement.

“Why was he staring at you, Sokka?” his sister asked.

He groaned. Of course Katara would notice.  _ Of course _ . “Because of my superior good looks and the fact that I once again saved the day with my engineering skills, obviously.”

Katara’s gaze was focused on him and Toph snorted, clearly not impressed by his obvious deflection, but he didn’t know what to tell them. It was just a thing that had been happening, and he didn’t know why. Nothing had really changed- they were still quick to fight with each other and Sokka still tried to avoid Zuko when he could. The only thing that had changed, really, was that Zuko was just… staring at him. Luckily, he was saved from having to explain this to Katara when his tablet began buzzing. He looked at it quickly, pleased to see his dad was calling and that he now had an excuse to escape the horribly awkward conversation.

“Well, sorry everyone, but I’ve got to take this. Bye!”

He swiped the call open and his dad and stepfather’s faces filled the screen. He was struck, suddenly, by just how bad he missed his parents. It hadn’t been that long since he and Katara left, but the inevitable homesickness of being halfway across the galaxy from the rebellion base and Nerrivik washed over him. He grinned widely at them, walking quickly down the corridors to his and Katara’s room. “Dad! Bato! How are you?”

“Hey, Sokka! Good to see you.” His dad’s voice washed over him, and he felt his shoulders relax at the familiar sound. “We’re good! We just got back from a combat mission over at the Chameleon Belt and wanted to say hi.”

Sokka perked up- the Chameleon Asteroid Belt was one of the only things keeping the Empire from knocking on Ba Sing Se’s door right now. The rebellion usually kept its concentration on protecting it, even though it hardly ever faced attack. If the Empire was getting bold enough to approach it and even risk trying to weave their bigger ships through the tight spaces between asteroids, they must have something big planned. 

“Oh, wow. How’d it go? Is everyone okay?”

Bato nodded reassuringly. “Yeah, everyone’s okay, champ. And it went well, actually. There were some pesky fighter jets trying to pick their way through the asteroid belt, but their ships are too big. With our smaller pods, we were able to take them out in no time.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that. Do you know what they’re planning?”

His father shifted and frowned. “Not quite. A crew out there has intel that we’re waiting for, but we haven’t heard from them yet.”

Sokka hummed at his words. Not knowing what the Empire was planning, other than the fact that it clearly involved getting to Ba Sing Se through the Chameleon Belt, was unsettling- especially if there was a crew with intel about it that was MIA. “Do you think they’re in danger?”

“I’m sure they are, but they’re a capable crew. They’ve been updating us regularly, so we expect something any time now. But enough about that, how have you been doing on APPA?” Bato responded.

He shrugged. “We have our fair share of tight scrapes. I’ve fixed this ship up more times than I care to count, even though it hasn’t been that long. Zuko is going to send in a report, I think, but we got caught in a spot of trouble today coming out of Chin Village. We were followed by an Empire jet, and it managed to hit the ship pretty badly. We got away, but I had to reboot the power system in the middle of it.”

His dads shared a concerned look, both their foreheads wrinkled in worry. “They’re getting closer to Zuko than is comfortable,” his dad muttered. Sokka wanted to ask what that meant- why was everyone so concerned about getting Zuko? He had deserted the Empire, of course, but it didn’t seem like something worth chasing after him for, especially with how long ago he had left. He had to wonder if there was something more to the story that he didn’t know about, but before he could voice his questions, his dad asked, “Are you all okay?”

“Yeah, of course. We’re all fine. Zuko and Aang did a great job getting us out of there.”

“How’s it going with Zuko, anyways? Your dad told me about your first interaction. Has anything improved?”

He groaned and flopped down onto his bunk. “No! He’s such an asshole. I don’t get it! I don’t know what I did to him, but…”

Hakoda laughed. “Oh come on, he can’t be that bad. He’s really a great guy.”

Sokka shook his head furiously. “Everyone says that, but I don’t see it. Or at least, I’m not subjected to that. He just snaps at me, all the time. And sometimes he’ll compliment me on my work, but then he just follows it up with an insult or an order or something. He’s so… I can’t describe it as anything other than bitchy, really. He never tells me anything, either. I’m always the last to know, and I always have to find out from someone else. Not to mention we’re always running from someone who wants him dead.”

(The last point wasn’t really Zuko’s fault, of course, but Sokka was still going to be petty about it. Because he could.)

“And it’s just you he treats this way? What about Katara?”

“I mean… I think he’s scared of her, honestly, so he’s a little bit nicer to her. But he’s not all buddy buddy with her, either. They’re more… acquaintances.”

His dad hummed and said thoughtfully, “Sokka, you just have to remember the world he grew up in. The Phoenix King is a cruel man- it couldn’t have been easy, growing up there with those expectations. It’s been a long time since Zuko was in the Fire System, but memories like that stick with a person. He’s not quick to trust, and in general he isn’t the best with vulnerability.”

He supposed his dad had a point. The Phoenix King had a relentless list of rules and regulations that everyone, down to the most ordinary of Fire System citizens, had to follow. He led with an iron fist, and the long line of his forefathers were the same exact way. Zuko would have been impacted by those laws too, even growing up on…. He realized he didn’t know where Zuko grew up, but decided it didn’t really matter. No matter what planet he was on, if Sokka had grown up with that many rules, including one’s outlawing dancing, music, and art except for royal portraits, he would probably be a grouch too. And he guessed in general the captain was stoic- he didn’t often see him doing the same casual touching as the rest of them did or divulging his feelings- so maybe he had a point there, too. But it still didn’t answer why everyone wanted him dead, and he told his dads as much.

Bato shrugged. “He ran away. That’s like committing treason to the Empire.”

“I guess so. I’m sure he has his reasons, it’s just demoralizing to have him get along just fine with everyone else except me.”

“I’m sorry Sokka. I know you were looking forward to joining a crew. If you can’t work together, I can always have you moved to a different one.”

Sokka thought of Suki’s shaking laughter, Toph’s blunt teasing, Aang’s easy conversation, of being on a different crew than his sister and their new friends. He imagined having to get to know a new ship, a new crew, a new captain… He frowned at the thought and realized that he didn’t think he’d be able to work with another captain. No matter how much of an asshole Zuko could be, they had undoubtedly had their moments where it had seemed there was something more to their relationship. 

They had their moments of easy laughter alongside the rest of the crew. They worked well together when they were fighting, knowing what the other was going to do without even speaking and moving with a natural fluidity. They had even played pai sho together a few times, though Zuko wasn’t much competition seeing as he hated the game and it usually ended up with him storming away, angry at the game.

“No, Dad, that’s okay. We work together just fine.” 

From somewhere offscreen, there was a loud crash, then a yell, and both of them grimaced. “Ah fuck, that was new,” Bato cursed distractedly, looking towards whatever had just happened.

His dad turned back to the camera. “Sorry, Sokka, we gotta go. Someone just crashed a speeder bike, and now duty calls. I love you, kid.”

“Don’t let Zuko get you too down, okay? Just remember what he’s been through. And if Katara asks, tell her we’ll call her as soon as this is handled.”

Sokka nodded. “Yeah, I will. Bye, guys. I love you.”

The call ended, and Sokka was alone with a dark screen and his thoughts, tossing his dad’s words through his mind. Something nagged at him about the way he had been talking about Zuko, but he couldn’t place what it was. He shrugged it off, and got up to find the rest of the crew. He found them in the common room, with the exception of Zuko.

“Who was it?” Katara asked when he walked in.

“Dad and Bato. They said they’d call you later after they take care of something on the base.”

She smiled softly. Aang, who was brushing her long hair for her, said softly, “You guys must miss them.”

“Yeah,” Sokka sighed. “I didn’t realize how much until I saw their faces, though.”

Katara nodded, careful not to mess Aang up. “I haven’t talked to them in months. It’ll be good to see them.”

“I think you’re all saps. I’ve never seen my parents and I’ve never missed them,” Toph said. 

They all laughed, the door sliding open as they did, and Zuko walked in. He looked at them all laughing with a perplexed look, but he just shrugged and walked to his usual seat in the corner, which Sokka called in his brooding corner. He watched him carefully, looking for any hint of his strange behavior from earlier, but there was nothing. He looked completely and utterly normal, and Sokka couldn’t make himself understand what was going on in his head.

He was distracted from his thoughts when Toph sighed heavily, pulling her knees to her chest as she leaned back against the wall, a frown across her face. “That’s not… I mean, they weren’t the greatest parents in the galaxy. They never wanted me to join the rebellion because I’m blind and they thought that it was too dangerous, but I wanted to, more than anything. So when I was seventeen, I ran away. I went to Omashu from Gaoling and found a rebel crew to take me to one of the bases, where I could join. I haven’t spoken to them since then, and I… I do miss them, sometimes.”

Gently he asked, “Have you ever thought about reaching out to them?”

She blew her bangs out of her face, something he recognized as her trying to hide how vulnerable she felt. “Maybe. There’s a holiday on Gaoling in a few days, so… Maybe that would be a good time.”

Knowing she wanted the attention shifted away from her, he offered, “If you want help, just ask, alright? I’d be happy to do whatever you need me to.”

She smiled softly, and mimed punching him in the arm from across the room. “Thanks, Snoozles.”

“I didn’t really have parents,” Aang said thoughtfully after a moment, as he began braiding Katara’s hair, long brown strands passing through his fingers like water. “I mean, obviously I had parents, but we weren’t really raised by them. It was more of a community- everyone pitched in to raise all of the children, and we had mentors. Mine was Monk Gyatso.” He had a fond, small smile on his face as he spoke, though it was tinged with sadness. Sokka’s heart ached and he glanced over at Zuko, whose face was stony with anger. “I miss him, more than I can say. He was the one who helped me choose APPA and he taught me how to fly. I’m a pilot because of him.”

Katara reached back and placed her hand on his knee comfortingly. Aang finished her braid and took it with his own as soon as his hands were free. It was a sweet moment, and Sokka turned to Suki to draw the attention away from them. “What about you, Suki?”

“My parents aren’t members of the rebellion, but they’re big supporters of it. They encouraged me to join, actually, because they knew how much it meant to me. I talk to them about once a month, probably? And everytime I’m on Kyoshi, I stop and see them.”

Sokka squeezed her hand. Unable to stop himself, he turned to the silent, brooding figure in the corner. “Zuko?”

He looked up, dark hair falling in front of his eyes. “What?”

“What about your parents? Or family? Is there anyone you miss?”

Zuko’s gaze was as icy as his voice. “Besides my uncle, no. No one.”

He swallowed. Before he could do anything, though, the communications device attached to Toph’s hip crackled to life. She grabbed it quickly, turning the volume up so that they could all hear it, and they all leaned in with anticipation.

A young woman’s voice yelled out, “Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is URSF _ Aurora _ , location sector seventeen. Empire forces are on our tail. We’re carrying precious cargo and are requesting back up. I repeat, this is URSF _ Aurora _ , location sector seventeen. Empire forces are on our tail and we’re requesting backup. Over.”

The radio fell silent and Sokka could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, could hear the blood rushing in his ears, could feel his breathing was ragged and shallow, could feel a pit of dread and nerves in his gut. There was one ship that their father had told them to keep tabs on, one crew that they could always rely on, and the disembodied voice had just said the name of it. Which meant if the  _ Aurora _ was in trouble, then- he swallowed, unable to finish the thought. When he looked at Katara the dread he felt in his stomach was echoed on her face. 

He opened his mouth at the same time as she did, but before either of them could speak, Suki broke the silence. Sokka could think of no better word to describe how she looked other than lost- glazed over eyes, arms limp at her side, a grief stricken expression… When she spoke, her voice was thick with devastating sadness. “URSF _ Aurora _ , that’s-”

“ _ Yue _ ,” Katara interrupted her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.... yeah
> 
> -
> 
> Thank you so much for all the love on this so far, it really means the world!
> 
> A huge thank you to Floof (Alpha_Blue on ao3) for helping me with this story in general, but particularly this chapter and the explanation of how ion propulsion engines work cause i am... helpless with engineering stuff lmao. 
> 
> Also, Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it! And if you don't, I hope you're having a wonderful day and that whatever (if any) winter holiday you celebrate is/was great too :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always check out my tumblr ([@zukosadragon-ace](https://zukosadragon-ace.tumblr.com/))/leave comments/kudos! Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> ~ Chapter Guide ~  
> Senlin: A small village that secretly supports the rebellion; supplies the galaxy with various types of pentapus  
> Hei Bai: A forest planet in the Earth System; Senlin is on this planet  
> Chin Village: a small Earth System village that is occupied by the Empire  
> Chameleon Belt: an asteroid belt around Ba Sing Se; protected by the rebellion, and a major obstacle keeping the Empire from getting into Ba Sing Se


	3. The Prison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite chapters I've written so far. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do <3

At the sound of Yue’s name falling from her lips, the common room fell silent. Suki’s face was wrinkled in confusion as she gazed at them, her grief laying just below the surface, and Sokka was fairly certain he and Katara had the exact same expression as she did.

Zuko looked between the three of them, frown deepening (if Sokka hadn’t been so out of it, he might’ve wondered if his face was going to get stuck like that, with how much frowning he did). “You know Yue?”

“She’s our cousin,” Sokka said, though he felt numb with shock and the words were thick in his mouth. “Kind of. I mean, she’s from Alignak and our great grandfather was too, before he moved to Nerrivik. Her great grandmother was his sister.”

Katara turned to Zuko. With wide eyes and no small amount of desperation, she pleaded, “We have to help them, Zuko, please. She’s family, and if they have precious cargo, it’s even more important. I know you don’t do combat missions-”

He held his hand up and, immediately snapping into captain mode, interrupted to say, “Katara, don’t worry. We’re going to help them, I promise. Aang?” 

Katara’s shoulders slumped in relief, and Sokka let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding at Zuko’s words.

Meanwhile, the pilot was already moving, rushing to the cockpit. “I’m on it!” he called over his shoulder. “Setting a course now.”

“I’m right behind you.” He turned to Toph next. “Toph, radio that we’re on our way. We’ll be there as soon as we can, they just need to hold on as long as they can while we cross through the sectors.” 

She nodded, already murmuring into her comms device as she left the room as well. “URSF _Aurora_ , this is Air Peace Corps _Pathfinder_. We received your signal and we’re on our way to supply back up. I repeat, this is APPA, on our way to supply back up- just hold on a few more minutes. Over.”

The captain walked up to Suki next, who was still standing next to Sokka looking lost and confused. He placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned down a little so that he was looking directly into her eyes. In a gentle voice, he murmured, “Hey, she’ll be okay, Suki. We’ll be there soon. I promise.” 

The weapons master nodded, though her eyes were still vacant. With a deep sigh he wrapped her up in a quick hug- probably the first Sokka had ever seen him give, not that it was important right now- before he left to join Aang in the cockpit.

Once he was gone, Suki sank down heavily onto the curved bench of the table and put her head in her hands. “I hope she’s okay.” 

When she spoke, her voice was weak and shaky, and it was clear she was trying to hold in tears. It was such a far cry from her normal confident tone, full of strength and power, that his heart splintered into even more pieces.

Sokka slid into the booth next to her and placed his arm around her shoulders. She sank into him, relieved by the touch, and he asked her, “How do you know Yue? You seem really worried about her, so you two must be close.”

“You could say that. She’s my fiancée,” she said with a shaky, breathless laugh. “Guess that means we’re family, huh?”

Sokka beamed and Katara, who had sat down on the other side of Suki, grinned and gave her a one sided hug, too. “That’s amazing Suki! Welcome to the family.”

Suki smiled, though it was painful and fell as quickly as it had come. “It’s not just her I’m worried about, though. I’m friends with everyone on her crew- we all are. If anything happens to them…”

“Don’t worry, Suki. Family looks out for each other. We’ll save her and her crew.” Suspecting a distraction would help her, Sokka added on, “Come on. Let’s get the guns ready.”

She nodded sharply, collecting herself quickly and snapping into work mode. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We should be ready. Let’s go.”

The three of them worked together quickly, calibrating the targeting system and charging up the guns on the ship, even the cannons that they likely wouldn’t use- it was better to be safe than sorry, especially when not only family, but also the precious cargo they had, was on the line. As Sokka worked alongside Suki, Katara up on the top level readying the guns up there, he couldn’t help but find it ironic that they had ended up on the crew with their cousin’s fiancée. 

He hadn’t even known Yue was engaged, but he supposed that it wasn’t all that surprising, considering that he hadn’t heard from her since her eighteenth birthday. 

She had always wanted to join the rebellion but her father, the Chieftain of Alignak, hadn’t wanted her to since it was so dangerous. Yue had always done what she thought was right, though, and once she got an idea in her mind, it stayed there. The night after her eighteenth birthday she had run away, joined the rebellion, and that had been it- he hadn’t heard from her since, and it had been six years. Really, it was only because of their father’s position as a general that he and Katara even knew what ship she was on.

“How did you meet Yue?” he asked after he realized that while he had been lost in his thoughts, Suki’s face had fallen once more.

Her brilliant grin returned as her fingers flew across the screen, running calibrations again to double check everything was set. “When she ran away, she came to Kyoshi. She figured it was far enough that her dad wouldn’t look for her there, instead thinking she’d go to Nerrivik since it was closer. I was the top of my class, so I was in charge of training her and getting her caught up on everything. I whipped her into shape in no time- not that it was hard, since she has so much natural talent and she’s so smart- and we joined the same crew a few months later. 

We were on that ship together for another year, until I was transferred to work with Aang and Zuko. I’ve been with them since, whereas she’s floated around a lot. We started dating a few months after we joined that first crew and I proposed to her a year after I left with Zuko. All I ever thought about was her, so I knew she was the one for me. We were both so busy after the proposal, though, that we never had time to even so much as plan the wedding, and now here we are, four years later and still just engaged.”

Sokka grinned- he could tell, just from her tone of voice and her smile, how much she loved her. Though he hadn’t seen Yue in a long time, he could imagine that they were practically made for each other- both headstrong and determined, with a strong sense of duty and a desire to make a difference, but also a knack for getting into trouble and having fun. “That’s really amazing, Suki. You must miss her like crazy.”

“I do, but whenever we’re on base together we make the most of it. I comfort myself by thinking about the fact that someday I’ll get to call her my wife. And we send each other video comms all the time, so I get to see her pretty often, even if it’s all pixelated and grainy.” She sighed heavily suddenly, smile slipping away. “I know her crew can handle itself, but I’m worried, Sokka.”

“I know. Me too. But we’re almost there, and I’m sure her and her crew are doing just fine.”

Just then, Zuko’s voice crackled to life over their headsets to warn, “Coming out of hyperspace now. Everyone be ready.”

As if the cosmos were playing a joke on them, they emerged from hyperspace to a battleground. 

The first thing he noticed were five Starfighters, the high tech jets the Empire used during battles, scattered across the space around them. The degree to which they had been damaged varied greatly, with three of them mostly intact while the other two had exploded into tiny pieces. The second thing he noticed was that-

“We’re too late,” Suki muttered hollowly, her hands falling from the gun’s controls to rest aimlessly in her lap. 

As he looked out of the window with her, Sokka’s heart fell. 

There, right in front of them, was a small blue rebellion ship, surrounded by at least fifteen more Starfighters. And, the great trick of fate, was that just as APPA finished coming out of hyperspace, every single other ship’s engine began to glow brighter and then they were gone, zipping into hyperspace before they could even make an attempt to help. 

“They’re gone,” his voice was distant even to his own ears, and he looked out at where his cousin’s ship had been mere seconds ago numbly. 

They were too late, and now his cousin and her crew had disappeared with the Empire. His heart was a tangled mess, with sadness, disappointment, the sting of failure, and the fear of what would happen to them at the Empire’s hands all combining to make an overwhelming storm. 

Suki began to shake next to him and he realized belatedly that she was crying. Quickly, he jumped out of his seat and knelt in front of her. He grabbed one hand with his left and with his right wiped away her tears, brushing his thumb lightly across her cheeks. Her eyes were unfocused as he attempted to comfort her (and himself, in a way) with a gentle, “Hey, Suki, it’s okay. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

“How, Sokka?” she asked brokenly. “We don’t even know where they’re going and we can’t track them in hyperspace. There are thousands of Imperial bases on planets in the surrounding sectors, not to mention all of their battleships and the entirety of the Fire System. How are we supposed to figure it out?”

“I-” He sighed heavily. He felt, honestly, helpless in the situation, and it made something ugly twist in his gut as he looked into Suki’s eyes. All his life, he’d been someone who looked out for people- through whatever means he had to help them, he was there. It was why he’d wanted to join the rebellion. And now, here he was, and within five minutes he’d failed to save his cousin and now had no real way to help Suki. He had no plan, no clue where the _Aurora_ had disappeared to, no idea how to track them, and no idea of what to even say to make his friend feel better. He sighed again and confessed quietly, “I don’t know. I wish I had the answer right now. But if we go and talk to Zuko and the Gaang, we can figure it out, okay? We _will_. I won’t lose my cousin, I won’t let you lose your fiancée, and I won’t let this crew lose their friends. I promise. Let’s just go up to the cockpit, okay?”

She sniffled and looked into his eyes, searching for something in his gaze. She must not have seen anything, because she nodded, wiped her cheeks dry, and stood up. With firm resolution, she said, “Yeah. Let’s go figure out where they went.”

He clutched her hand and they crawled up from the gun room together. The cockpit had a palpable tension in the air, with the other four members of their crew sitting in silence, clearly waiting for them. As soon as they walked in, Zuko was out of his seat to wrap Suki into another tight hug. 

She sighed into it, and Zuko murmured, “I’m so sorry, Suki. If we had just gotten here a few seconds earlier, we might have been able to-”

“Hey, it’s okay. We got here as fast as we could, considering we were almost ten sectors away. The fact that we even got here when we did is amazing, Zuko. It’s not your fault, or Aang’s, or anyone else’s on this ship. We all did our best.”

Sokka was amazed by her strength, and it seemed everyone else was too, based on the watery smiles they all bore.

After a long moment, Zuko nodded and pulled back, his cool mask already slipping back on. He turned to face everyone. “Alright. So clearly, we need to go find them. They have important cargo based on Jin’s message, for one. But more than, they’re our friends. We have to save them. Agreed?”

Every single one of them nodded, and even Momo, who was sitting at Aang’s feet, chirped. 

“Alright. Good to hear.”

“Where do you think they took them, Zuko?” Toph asked.

Their captain fell silent, his face wrinkled in concentration as he thought. “It depends on what their cargo is. But if I had to guess-”

A loud ping from Suki’s holo projector attached to her hip interrupted him, and with a gasp she whipped it out as fast as she could. “It’s from Yue,” she breathed, already pressing play. 

She held it out in her palm and the blue hologram of his cousin’s face hovered above it, the first he’d seen of her in years. It was glitchy and pixelated, as holograms sent across the galaxy tend to be, but the arch of her brow, the curve of her nose, the gleam in her eye, even the way she wore her hair, were all the same, and he found himself tearing up as her hologram began to speak.

“Hey, Suks. I saw you guys pop out of hyperspace just as we were escorted away- thanks for getting there so fast and trying to help out. Listen, I’m not going to lie, it’s not looking too good for us right now in terms of getting out of this situation. We stole something very important from the Empire, and we already know they’ll stop at nothing to get it back. At the very least, though, we’re all okay- there are no injuries and our ship is holding itself together.”

She paused and shifted in her seat, looking at something offscreen, and her brow furrowed. “I’m… not totally sure where we are. They jammed our navigation, so we can’t even tell what sector it is, though it’s clear we’re in the Fire System. We’re being taken to some planet that… It looks like the entire thing is on fire. I’ve never seen anything like it before… Also, there aren’t any other planets nearby from what we can see. I know that’s not a lot to go on, but Zuko knows the Fire System well. Maybe he can figure it out. I hope…” even as low quality as the hologram was, Sokka could tell Yue was putting on a brave front as she smiled and cut herself off. “We’ll be alright, Suki. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, okay? I love you.”

It cut out, and a heavy silence fell over them all. Suki wrapped her fingers carefully around the device, then attached it to her belt once more. There were tears glistening in her eyes, but her voice was steady when she turned to Zuko, whose face was pale. 

“Do you know of any place like what she described?”

He nodded slowly, eyes unfocused. “I know of… Of one place. It’s an exoplanet on the very edge of sector five, almost out of anyone’s jurisdiction. It’s called the Boiling Rock.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Sokka murmured, and the other four members of the Gaang nodded their heads in agreement.

“You wouldn’t have. It’s one of the Empire’s most closely guarded secrets. Very few people know about it.” Sokka wondered how, then, Zuko knew about it, but he was moving on before he could ask. “It’s a lava planet and so, exactly like Yue described, the entire thing's on fire. It's covered in molten lava and rocks, and it can reach temperatures higher than even the hottest of stars. That’s where its name comes from- it’s hot enough that the air can make even rock boil.”

Sokka blanked at the terrifying description, and anxiety made his blood roar in his ears as he imagined his cousin on this planet.

“So is it a military base, or-” Katara began to ask.

“It’s a prison- the highest security prison in the galaxy. It’s a massive bunker built on the largest piece of solid land, and it’s almost entirely surrounded by lava. No one’s ever escaped, and the Empire’s most dangerous criminals are sent there- prisoners of war, thieves, traitors, murderers… You get the picture.” 

Suki slumped against the wall numbly. “Is she… Is she going to be okay there? Will our friends be okay?”

Zuko looked away noncommittally and responded shortly, “We should make a plan and set a course right away. It takes a long time to get there.”

☆☆☆

Making a plan was a lot harder to do than it sounded- for one, there was the question of how exactly they were supposed to infiltrate a maximum security prison on a planet that was basically a giant volcano, capable of boiling their blood in their veins the moment they stepped outside.

The second was that they just couldn’t agree on anything. Every single idea someone proposed, like flying their ship in, guns blazing, or building heat resistant suits, wouldn’t work. Either it was too dangerous, too stupid, too impractical, would take too long… Now, with about thirteen different ideas having been thrown out, their tempers were running thin and arguing had broken out between them all.

Sokka had the beginnings of an idea he was pretty sure would work, but Zuko and Katara were screaming at each other at such a volume that thinking the rest of it through was impossible. He didn’t even know what they were arguing about, just that they were slinging insults across the room at each other and it was making his head feel as though it was splitting open. 

“You’re such a stubborn badger-mule!” His sister spat viciously, making Zuko scoff and firmly ending Sokka’s train of thought.

“Oh, because you’re so much better. At least I’m not-”

“Oh for spirit's sake, shut up!” he yelled finally, tearing at his hair. 

They both fell silent and looked at him in shock.

“Sokka-” his sister began to protest, her tone snippy. He had reached his limit with the arguing, though, and cut her off.

“No! I’m trying to think and make a plan, and I can’t with you two hurling childish insults at each other. What are you even arguing about?”

“We were arguing about-” she hesitated, thinking, and he raised a pointed eyebrow. She crossed her arms and huffed, looking away stubbornly. “Fine. I see your point.”

“Do you have a plan, Sokka?” Aang asked hesitantly from his spot in the pilot’s seat. 

He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly. “It was difficult to think over all the _noise_ , but… I think so. The beginnings of one, at least.”

“What is it, Snoozles?”

“I think… I don’t think all six of us should go.”

The room, predictably, burst out into objections.

“What? Sokka, that’s insane. This is going to be crazy dangerous!” Aang said.

“Snoozles, you can’t be serious,” groaned Toph. “I want to kick scary prison guard ass!”

“Absolutely not! We need to stay together,” came Katara’s voice.

Suki’s voice rose above them all as she said desperately, “I have to go. Yue’s in there, Sokka, I can’t sit this out.”

Zuko, unsurprisingly, was the only one who was silent. Once they all said their piece, the captain asked, “Why do you think that?”

“We’re trying to infiltrate what you described as the highest security prison in the galaxy, right?” He nodded. “Right. So if we have six people when we go in, and we try to break out… How many people?”

“Five. The _Aurora_ is a five person crew,” Aang supplied.

“Right. So we’re six, and we’re trying to find five more, suddenly that’s eleven people we’re trying to sneak out of a prison no one else has ever broken out before. It won’t work. We’ll never get away with it.”

“What are you suggesting, then?” Toph asked, leaning forwards, elbows on her knees. 

“We split up. When we came out of hyperspace, I saw there’s the wreckage of five Imperial Starfighters. Three of them appear to be in decent enough shape that with just a few repairs, we could fix them up enough to get us to the prison. So three people go to the Boiling Rock, disguised as fighter pilots, while the other three stay on APPA in case… In case something goes wrong and the others get caught. We bust Yue and the others out, then rendezvous with everyone else somewhere far away from the Boiling Rock.”

“That’s actually… A really solid plan,” Katara conceded. 

Toph nodded. “I agree. Not bad, Snoozles.”

“What do you think, Zuko?” he asked, holding his breath. 

The captain ran one hand down his face, brow furrowed as he thought. The expression made Sokka vibrate with anxiety. He knew it was a good plan- at the very least, the best that had been proposed so far- and could only hope Zuko recognized that too. He was pretty sure he’d say yes, but with their track record he couldn’t ignore the flicker of doubt that said he’d shoot his idea down. 

Finally, after an agonizing wait, he nodded. “I think… I think that would work.”

He breathed a sigh of relief with no small amount of surprise that Zuko agreed, before Aang asked, “Who goes where, then?”

“Zuko should obviously go,” Suki suggested. “He knows the most about the prison and about the Empire. He needs to be there.”

“You should go too, Suki,” Katara added. “For Yue, and because you’re the best fighter we have. If something happens and there’s a fight, they’ll need your skills.”

She nodded resolutely, though her voice showed how relieved she was. “Of course I’ll go.”

“So who’s the third?” Toph asked. “Aang should stay here on the ship- he’s the only one besides Zuko who knows how to fly APPA. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m better suited to be on the ship. If I went, I’d need Momo to see and he isn’t exactly lowkey or stealthy.”

“I think…” his sister paused briefly and looked at him from across the room. “I think Sokka should go.”

“What? Katara-” He objected immediately, looking over to her quizzically. She loved going on missions, he knew, sharing in his desire to help, to _do something_ , and so for her to so freely give up a mission- _especially_ one when someone they loved was involved- was startling.

“No, listen. I’m sure the prison has doors and security systems in place that you’ll need to hack or… Whatever. I don’t know how to do all that stuff, Sokka. I wouldn’t be very useful on this mission.”

“Katara, that’s not true.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But you have to admit, I’m not a very good liar. If I got questioned, they’d catch onto us right away.”

He sighed, knowing she was right, and nodded. He had to admit, though, he’d been hoping to go. Not only because it was his plan and he wanted to see it through, but also because… As he’d watched the ship disappear into hyperspace earlier, he’d felt more inadequate than he’d felt in a long time. If he was waiting on the ship, that feeling of helplessness, of uselessness, would only grow. At least in the prison, even though it was dangerous, he would be able to make up for his earlier failure. 

“Alright. I’ll go. Does everyone agree? Zuko, Suki, and I will sneak in and get them out on the _Aurora_. Katara, Toph, and Aang will be nearby, and once we’re out we’ll reconvene somewhere.”

Zuko nodded sharply. “Let’s get to work. The sooner we get there, the better.”

☆☆☆

He ended up being right about the less damaged jets he’d spotted- closer investigation and scanning revealed that it wouldn’t take much to fix them up. Some welding here, rewiring there, a system reboot, and they would be functional. Or at least functional enough to get them to where they needed to be. 

The loading dock was just big enough for all three jets, so they were able to save time by dividing into teams and rotating between the ships. He got Suki and Zuko to get to work on welding and repairing the damage to the metal hull of the jets together, while he and Katara worked on the rewiring, and Toph and Aang were in charge of the system reboots. 

He and Katara were working on the wiring of the second ship when she asked quietly enough that only he heard, “Do you think this is going to work?” 

“Hold here,” he directed, then, just as quietly, “I hope so. If we play it right, I think it will. It has to.” After a moment he confided, “I’m surprised that Zuko agreed to it, actually.”

“It’s a really good plan, Sokka, of course he did. He’d have been stupid not to... Also, I would have beaten his ass for it.”

“I can’t believe my ears. Did you _really_ just say I had a good plan?”

She rolled her eyes and swatted his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get used to it, though.”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t dare.”

She chuckled, then mused out loud, “I can’t believe we’ve been on this ship for a few weeks and we’re already planning some crazy rescue mission.”

He laughed slightly. “It is a bit crazy, but… This is what we signed up to do. Help people, make a difference in the war, and all that.” He pointed to the next section of wiring. “Hold here now, please. Besides, the fact that it’s Yue…”

She hummed. “Who would have thought that after all this time without hearing from her, we would end up on the ship with the woman she’s engaged to. And now we’re busting her out of prison.”

“It is very typical for our family, you have to admit.”

She snorted. “I don’t think Mom and Dad ever busted someone out of jail, but…”

“Maybe not, but they did pull some crazy stunts with Bato. Remember how they got the Empire to retreat from the Chameleon Belt that one time? Dad flew the ship practically blind because sensors and navigation was down, Bato was just firing into space randomly since targeting was down as well, and Mom had to try to reboot the system, all the while they were crashing into asteroids and fighting ten Empire jets all at once.”

It had been their mom’s favorite story to tell them before she’d gotten sick and passed, and the memory of it always made the two of them laugh. Sure enough, Katara chuckled and agreed, “Yeah, I guess the crazy ideas run in our genes.” After a moment, she lowered her voice even further so that he had to strain to hear her and asked seriously, “Are you going to be okay?”

He smiled fondly at her worry. “Of course I will be, Katara. You know I’m always careful on missions.”

“No, I meant with Zuko.”

The wires slipped out of his grasp in his shock, and he cursed as a few sparks scattered across the section he was working with. He honestly hadn’t thought about the fact that Zuko was going to be going on this mission with him, and he told her as much. 

She sighed in exasperation. “Sokka, I’m serious. If you two start bickering or something and you get caught because of it…”

“It’ll be fine. It’s never been an issue on missions before.” 

It was true- when it really mattered, like on missions or during a fight, they worked together just fine. Great, actually. Sometimes, it seemed as if they could read each other’s minds due to the fluidity and synchronicity with which they worked together, and they always had each other’s back. It was just… the rest of the time when Zuko hated him for some reason. 

“I know, I just worry.”

He set the finished section down in place carefully, then reached out to grasp her hand. “We’ll be fine, I promise. Suki will be there as a buffer and we both know what’s on the line. It won’t be an issue.”

“Alright,” she said placatingly. “I trust you.”

“Speaking of Zuko, don’t you think it’s weird that he knows about this prison? He made it seem all mysterious and secretive, but then he knows all this stuff about it.”

“Seriously?” she asked, laughing. He didn’t understand why, though, and just stared at her in confusion. When she finally noticed he hadn’t responded, she looked up at him and her eyes widened. “Oh. _Oh_ , you don’t know, do you? Why did no one tell you?” 

“What? Tell me what?”

She looked away and pointed to the next section they had to fix in an effort to distract him. “This part next, right?”

“Yes. But Katara, come on. What am I missing?” He practically whined, but he couldn’t help it- they rarely ever kept secrets from each other, and now she was keeping one about _Zuko_ \- the guy who hated him- of all people? He pouted to try and get her to spill, but she looked down at the panel instead.

“It’s… It’s not important right now, Sokka. We need to just focus on the mission. I’ll… We can talk about it later.” At his dejected look, she added softly, “I promise.”

He frowned, frustrated, but dropped it. He knew when his sister didn’t want to talk about something, and this was definitely one of those times. Besides, being frustrated right now wouldn’t save Yue and her crew. 

At least now he _knew_ there was something important about Zuko that he was missing. 

And somehow, Katara knew it when he didn’t. 

Promising himself he’d find out the truth one way or another after they rescued the crew of the _Aurora_ , he set it aside in a box for later and got back to work.

☆☆☆

A little over an hour later, the three jets had been fully repaired, or at least as much as they could be. Suki, Zuko, and Sokka were all ready to go, dressed in the spare black flight suits that Aang had found in each ship so that they’d blend in better once they arrived. Since APPA could travel through hyperspace faster than the jets could, Aang piloted them to the middle of sector five, from where they would fly the rest of the way on their own. 

“Kiss ass for me, nerds,” Toph said when they arrived with a smirk. Her voice was as confident and tough as always, though her worry was betrayed when she flung herself at them, giving each of them a tight hug. 

“We’ll be fine, Toph,” Sokka murmured when she got to him. “Think of some good jokes while I’m gone.”

“You bet,” she sniffled, then yanked herself away before he could see her tears.

“Be careful out there, okay?” Aang implored, giving them each a hug. “If anything goes wrong, anything at all, hit your emergency comm, okay?”

Sokka patted his pocket, where the small device was. They were small enough to avoid detection, so they had each grabbed one in case of emergency- if they got into trouble, they could push the button on the device and it would send a signal straight to Toph’s comm device.

Suki smiled softly and reassured him, “Of course Aang. The minute something goes wrong, we’ll let you know.”

“Alright.” With a deep breath, he stepped away and squared his shoulders. “Good luck.”

Katara hugged Sokka first, though she didn’t say anything- everything they might say to each other had already been said, and anything else felt too much like a goodbye rather than a ‘see you later.’ That didn’t stop him from dropping a kiss to the top of her head, or Katara from squeezing him tight, though.

She hugged Suki just as tight, and murmured, “You’ll find her, Suki. I know you will.”

The auburn haired girl smiled softly. “Next time you see me, your cousin will be at my side- I promise.”

To his surprise, Katara then turned to Zuko and, standing on her tiptoes, flung her arms around him, too. She whispered something to him that he couldn’t hear, but he wished he could, because it made Zuko’s face go ashen. He nodded, eyes wide and clearly shaken, and when Katara stepped away she had a smug smile on her face.

Zuko cleared his throat, and looked to Sokka and Suki. “Let’s go.”

They climbed into their jets, fired them up, and with one last wave at Toph, Aang, and Katara they were off, Zuko leading the way. 

As he followed along behind Zuko, Suki to his left, he entertained himself by looking around at his surroundings- there was nothing around them besides distant stars, which were bright pinpricks of light dotting the dark vastness of space. 

Occasionally Zuko would update them with how far away they were or if they needed to adjust their course, but for the most part they flew in silence.

Eventually, after nearly an hour, a planet began to emerge from the darkness, and Zuko’s voice crackled to life in his ear. “As we approach, they’re going to ask for a confirmation. Just let me do the talking.”

“You got it, cap,” Suki responded.

Once the planet appeared, it seemed to take no time until they were close enough that Sokka could see the bright orangish-red glow of the lava snaking across the planet, filling the cracks in the rock layer- exactly like Yue described, the entire thing looked as though it were on fire. The surrounding atmosphere seemed to move and shimmer from the intense heat, and he swallowed lightly. He knew the ships were built to withstand heat- they had to be in order to go anywhere within the Fire System- but it didn’t stop anxiety from prickling underneath his skin. 

“We aren’t about to get burnt to a crisp, are we?” Suki echoed his thoughts, though her tone was light and teasing whereas his thoughts were more... serious.

Zuko laughed slightly. “No, we’ll be fine. The jets and the prison are built out of the most heat resistant materials in the galaxy. They have to be, on account of the lava. Even Fire Folk can’t handle that high of temperatures.”

They flew closer with every second, and gradually more features of the planet began to come into focus. 

He could see the lava moving now, the thick substance flowing and oozing slowly amongst the rock layer, which he could now see was really a layer of cooled lava. In other areas, where the lava hadn’t gotten to form yet, it formed giant pools that splintered off into the rivers that carved their way across the planet. Every so often the convection currents from the core of the planet reached the surface of the planet, creating massive bubbles that sent hot liquid flying in all directions when they eventually burst. 

Just ahead of them, on the only area of solid land on the planet- likely from drills pumping a cooling agent, like water, directly into the core to keep the lava at bay- was the prison, a hulking metal structure that was equal parts impressive and terrifying. 

Hexagonal in shape and reaching high into the sky at easily over thirty stories tall, the prison cut a figure as ominous as the planet it was on. Guard posts stuck out from the top of each of the six corners to ensure every angle of approach was covered. Several battle pods, small spherical ships equipped with the most powerful guns and advanced sensor systems in the galaxy, circled the air above and around it, and battle tanks patrolled the surrounding ground.

Looking at it now, Sokka’s palms were slippery on his controls and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, so hard he thought it might break through his ribcage. He could see why no one had ever escaped, and he began to wonder just how likely it was that his plan would work. 

As they drew even closer, a stranger’s voice suddenly crackled to life through his headset. “Halt, Starfighter Delta six-eight-five. This is dispatch. What’s your purpose?”

Zuko’s ship stalled in the air, and he and Suki followed suit behind him.

“Dispatch, this is Starfighter Delta six-eight-five, requesting permission to land,” Zuko responded, voice calm and steady, as if he did this everyday. 

Sokka was immensely glad the captain had volunteered to handle the communications, because he knew if he tried to speak right now, his voice would be a shaky mess and they’d know right away they were trying to break in.

There was the sound of a few buttons being clicked on the other end, then a new voice said, “Delta six-eight-five, this is the landing deck. Please send your landing code for all three Starfighters.”

There were a few moments of silence as Zuko complied, then finally their confirmation came. “Starfighter Delta six-eight-five, Alpha four-six-seven, and Delta nine-four-one, you are cleared for landing.”

“Roger that, thank you landing deck. Coming in now.”

In sync, the three of them flew their ships forwards, towards a wide set of doors set into the building that were now sliding open. They ended up in a sort of antechamber, with another thick set of metal doors in front of them. The doors behind them slid shut, encasing them in darkness, then the second set opened after a moment, keeping out the heat behind them. They guided their ships through the doors, then landed on the ground to taxi into a spot. 

The hangar they had ended up in was large, taking up half of the hexagon and several floors. Parked all around them were other Starfighters and battle pods. Pilots, dressed in all black jumpsuits and helmets like the three of them currently wore, tended to their ships, alongside the repair crews, in simple black trousers, red tunics, and felt caps. Interspersed amongst them, groups of soldiers dressed in the thick red and black armor, faces completely covered by their metal helmets, walked around, their blasters clutched in hand. 

Once they’d shut down the ships and handed them over to the repair crews, Suki, Sokka, and Zuko met up again in the middle of the room.

“Alright we’re here now. What’s next, Sokka?” Suki asked quietly as a group of guards walked past.

Sheepishly, he brought his hand up and scratched the back of his neck. “Um, I’m not totally sure?”

“What?” Zuko whispered. Even through the shield of his helmet, he could see the wildness in his eyes and the red flush on his cheeks that showed his anger. “ _How do you not know_?”

He quickly grew defensive. “Well, I didn’t exactly have any idea what this place looked like or what to expect, did I? I did what I could, which was to make a plan to get us here. We can just... wing it now.”

“That’s seriously your plan? _Winging it_?” Zuko’s voice was incredulous and rapidly rising in volume.

“Yes! It is.” He glared at him, shrugging off the hand Suki had placed on his forearm in favor of continuing to yell at Zuko. Or at least whisper yell, since _he_ at least was still conscious of the fact that they were in an Empire prison and surrounded by people that would be all too happy to lock the three of them up. “Isn’t that what you always do, anyways? You never have a solid plan when we go on missions, that’s why we’re always running for our lives from bounty hunters and the Empire. This is no different, so don’t you get all _high and mighty_ with me about not having a plan.”

“This is absolutely crazy. My uncle always said I didn’t think things through, but this is-”

His blood boiled and he shot back, “Hey, I did all the work getting us here. So _what_ I don’t know how to go about finding them or getting out? That’s still more than you’ve contributed to the plan- all you did was glower and yell at my sister, just like you always do. Besides, you agreed to come. You didn’t have to if you thought it was such a _horrible_ idea.”

“Stop it, both of you!” Suki grabbed both of their arms, squeezing tightly to get their attention. “If this is going to work, we need to work together. We are surrounded by enemies and our friends have been captured, so you need to _stop fighting_. Okay?”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Zuko said darkly, though he took a step away from Sokka and clamped his jaw shut. 

Sokka didn’t respond, instead letting his eyes dart around the hangar in an attempt to find anything that might be useful. His eyes snagged on a group of guards coming through a door, escorting someone who appeared to be a new prisoner. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. 

“Wait, I have something. We’ll stick out too much in the main prison dressed as pilots, so we disguise ourselves as guards. Once we find Yue and the rest of them, we escort them to wherever the ship is.”

Before Zuko could say anything, Suki was agreeing. “Great. That’s perfect. Zuko, any idea of where we might find some uniforms laying around?”

After a brief glance around, he titled his head towards a large door on the far right wall. “The locker room. We should be able to find some there.”

Sokka didn’t like the sound of _should_ , but he figured now wasn’t the time to make a scene when they had already endangered themselves by standing there for so long, arguing where anyone could hear. He reminded himself why exactly he was there, and swallowing down his remaining anger, he followed Zuko and Suki when they turned to walk that way. No one paid them any attention as they strolled across the hangar, so they passed through the doors easily. He reluctantly had to hand it to Zuko, because sure enough they entered into a large locker room filled with cubbies. Most of them contained the repair crew and pilot uniforms, but they eventually found three guards uniforms, which they quickly changed into.

They were very awkward to get into, with Sokka’s being too small, Suki’s too big, and Zuko’s- _naturally_ \- fitting him perfectly. He supposed it was probably because he actually was Fire Folk and therefore had the physicality that they were built for, unlike he and Suki did, but with his preexisting annoyance, he couldn’t help but find it unfair that Zuko was fine while he was uncomfortable, just like on the Oasis.

Admittedly, though, when they slid the helmets on, he knew they would blend right in.

“Okay, we need weapons to complete this,” Sokka muttered, going over to the control panel in the corner by the door. It had a large screen on it, so he figured he could probably access a map that would lead them to an armory.

After a few moments of fiddling to figure out where the map would be, he got it pulled up and his companions crowded around him. 

“So it looks like the armory is on this floor too, just a few doors down, which is convenient since we won’t look suspicious coming out of here without them. It must be standard protocol to go from here to the armory before beginning a shift.”

Suki tapped a button, scrolling through the map. “Spirits, this place is massive. How are we supposed to find them?”

Zuko was silent, and even without being able to see his face Sokka knew he was probably biting his lip, the way he did when he was deep in thought. Slowly, he leaned forward, clicking on the screen so that it zoomed out again to show them the whole prison.

“Empire prisons are all set up the same. Different types of prisoners have their own code depending on their crime. For example, a deserter has a different code than say, a bounty hunter. If I had to guess, I would say that rebels fall under prisoners of war, which have their own code. They also keep a log of what time and date each person entered the prison. If we can access that log, we can determine who was recently admitted and marked as a prisoner of war. The most recent five should be our people.”

Hope flared in Sokka’s chest, and despite their argument earlier, he was grateful that Zuko was there to explain how the prison worked. “We wouldn’t be able to access that from here, would we?”

Zuko’s heavy sigh smothered the spark of hope and told him what he had suspected. “No. That information wouldn’t be kept in a public server like this. We’d need to get to a control room to hack into it.”

He groaned, but turned to the map to find a control room. After a few attempts, he found one a few floors down and on the other side of the hexagon. “Alright, I found one. So we just need to grab blasters, get there, and hack in.”

Suki pushed away from the wall with steely determination and a lopsided smirk. “Good. Let’s go, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully 2021 goes a little better than 2020 for us all <3
> 
> So, two things. First, I'm having back surgery on Tuesday, so I'm not quite sure when the next update will be. It all depends on how I'm feeling and stuff, so if it's not on Jan. 8, it'll likely be Jan. 15 :)
> 
> Second, if I made a masterpost on tumblr with all of the world building for this fic, would anyone be interested in that? It would be updated as I go and would include everything from the fic in one place, rather than just.... in the end notes like it is right now. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in?
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and for leaving comments/kudos, and check out my tumblr! ([@zukosadragon-ace](https://zukosadragon-ace.tumblr.com/))


	4. The Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up folks, this is... This is a long one. 9.6k to make up for skipping an update last week, I guess lol.
> 
> A huge thank you to Kaleigh and Rachel for being my confidantes and my biggest cheerleaders.... This chapter wouldn't have happened without either of you.

Sokka wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see when he emerged from the locker room into the main prison, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t… This.

However big the prison seemed on the outside, rising into the sky like a monolith of doom, inside it was somehow even bigger. Each floor was covered all the way around in cells, but rather than having a standard iron door, the cells were locked with a shimmering blue force field that crackled with electricity every so often. Guards patrolled the walkways outside the cells, though he was surprised that there weren’t as many as he’d expected. He supposed, though, that the electric force field was probably a good incentive to keep prisoners from trying to escape. 

It was the sheer number of cells, however- what Sokka could only estimate to be between two hundred or three hundred spread across the six walls on each floor- that was staggering, and under his helmet he went slack jawed. With the combination of all the floors- too many to count, although he could tell there was definitely over forty now that he was inside the prison himself- there were tens of thousands of prisoners, rotting away on the harsh planet.

He couldn’t help but wonder how many were like his cousin and were good people who were just trying to make a difference in the world, only to end up captured and locked away. Or how many had friends and family who were searching for someone who was here, but didn’t have someone like Zuko to tell them about this prison. Or how many had no one outside of these six walls left to remember them, and how they had already faded away from history.

He swallowed thickly as it dawned on him just why Zuko had wanted them to get here as quickly as they could. 

To either side of him, Suki and Zuko were both radiating tension, and he knew without anyone having to say anything they were all sharing the same thoughts.

“I hate the Phoenix King,” Zuko muttered darkly, before turning sharply on his heel and heading towards the weapons room, just to the left of where they’d emerged from the locker room. 

He looked to Suki, standing at his right side, and when she turned her head to meet his gaze she simply said, devoid of any emotion, “We need to find those codes.”

He could only nod, and with one last perturbed glance over his shoulder at the rows upon rows of pale blue, he followed her to grab a blaster.

The blasters were much easier to come across than their uniforms had been, considering the room was stocked full of them, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. He was surprised to find that they were energy weapons and meant to stun, rather than laser weapons that were meant to kill, and he said as much to Suki and Zuko.

“They don’t need lethal weapons to keep people in line. Trust me.” Zuko’s voice lacked the bite it so often had, and instead held a hollow mix of bitter anger and numbing sorrow. 

Sokka shot a curious glance his way, thrown by the strange tone, and was even more thrown when he saw the captain.

He was slouched over and held the blaster loosely in one hand, while his other hand had drifted up to his helmet, lingering over the left side of his face- the side of his scar was on, Sokka realized with a start. His gut clenched in dreadful suspicion and he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Zuko shook himself out of his mood and slapped the gun into his hand with easy familiarity. 

“Where’s the control room again, Sokka?”

“Uh, right,” Sokka stuttered, shaken by the sudden shift in tone. “It’s five floors down and on the other side of the building from us. It doesn’t look too hard to get to, we just need to remember that it’s on the twenty-fourth floor.”

“Great. Let’s go, then. The quicker we’re in and out of here, the better.”

They filed out of the room and, after a quick pause to orientate themselves, began to make their way over to the elevators on the other side of the building. No one paid the three of them any attention, so Sokka took the opportunity to look around some more. They had gone around to the left, which took them past more cells rather than past the hangar again, and he was able to see that the force fields were actually translucent, allowing just the silhouette of the prisoner and the shapes of the items in the cells to show through.

It was kind of eerie, seeing these faceless shadows locked away behind a screen of blue and remembering that they were a people too, and he had to look away. It crushed him to do so, but he reminded himself there really wasn’t anything he could do- the three of them were already facing a near impossible task, and helping more people would make it even more challenging. That’s the exact reason why he was here with just Suki and Zuko, not the entire crew. 

He turned instead to watching the guard patrols, figuring that it would be helpful to know what they were supposed to be doing to avoid suspicion. There were five guards per wall, and each was in charge of a chunk of cells. They weren’t really doing much, it seemed, instead pacing from side to side of their section and looking bored. It would make it harder to sneak into their cells, or course, but Zuko had shown he knew exactly how to speak to these people to make it so that they let them go where they needed to be. As long as nothing split them up, they’d be fine.

They reached the elevators without issue, and the doors slid open with a hiss. They filed in quickly and Suki reached over to push the button for their floor. Sokka let out a breath of relief as the door slid shut, and there was a lurching motion as it began to move. 

“So, when we get there-” Zuko began, just to be cut off by a chime ringing through the small room and the hiss of the doors opening.

“Oh, hi,” another guard greeted as he stepped into the elevator with them, standing on the side closest to Zuko. Male, based on the deep timbre of his voice, but Sokka couldn’t see much else of him due to the uniform- identical to theirs- he wore. “Say, you wouldn’t mind hitting the ground floor for me, would you?”

“Of course not,” Suki answered. “We’re getting off in just a few floors, so you’ll have the whole thing to yourself.”

“You’re getting off?” He seemed surprised, both from the tone of voice he used and the fact that he appeared to be looking between the three of them quickly.

Sokka’s eyes flicked over to Zuko, who cleared his throat. “We are. We’re heading to patrol. Our floor got switched last minute… You know how they love to fuck with us by doing that with no warning.”

The man nodded knowingly. “Yeah man, that’s the worst. But uh, the warden called everyone down to the courtyard. Didn’t you see the notification on your comms device?”

“No, this thing has been acting up all week. With all the money the Phoenix King has, you’d think he’d put a little more to better equipment for us guards, huh?” Zuko complained, gesturing to the cuff on his wrist where the uniforms must have the devices built in.

“Man do I hear you,” the guard agreed. “You remember the comms shortage just a few weeks ago, when everything fritzed out and we were without them for three days? It was an absolute mess!”

“I thought they fixed it, but I guess not since none of us got that message,” Suki shrugged. “Guess we’ll join you on the journey down to the courtyard.”

Sokka leaned back against the wall, looking at the guard as Suki pushed the button for the twenty-fourth floor again to cancel the order. “Do you know why he’s calling us down?”

“Beats me. Probably another little demonstration for the prisoners… You know how he loves those.”

Something inside Sokka twisted at his words, and he was suddenly grateful no one could see his face.

☆☆☆

The courtyard, it turned out, was just the open space in the middle of the first floor, with a clear view up to the top of the prison. It was daunting to look at from this angle, all of the floors stretching high up into the sky, and Sokka had to look away to keep himself from getting dizzy.  It was full of guards, their chatter filling the air, and they had all formed a circle around… Something.

“What’s going on?” Suki asked, just loud enough for Sokka and Zuko to hear.

The captain’s body was lined with tension, fists clenched at his sides, and he muttered back, “I have no clue. Let’s get a little closer.”

They pushed through the crowd, Suki in the lead, until they were in the second row and had a good enough view to figure out what was happening, and Sokka swallowed thickly when he saw what the other guard had meant by a “ _ little demonstration _ ”.

There was a man kneeling on the ground, wearing a torn and dirt stained prison outfit- deep red pants and a matching shirt, and his head was lowered towards the ground in tired defeat. Standing a short distance away from him was another man, who Sokka assumed to be the warden. His face was harsh and cold, and his mouth was twisted into a cruel smile as he stared down at the prisoner with beady eyes. He was clutching an energy gun loosely in one hand, with easy confidence, and his other hand crossed his chest to drum a steady rhythm on the opposite arm. It might pass as though he was deep in thought, but Sokka could tell it was all a show from the glint in his eye- he knew exactly what he was going to do. 

“So,” the man sneered down at the prisoner finally. Every single guard fell silent at the sound of his voice ringing throughout the metal structure. “Chit Sang. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing,” the man- Chit Sang, apparently- mumbled without lifting his head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“‘I didn’t do anything,’” the guard repeated slowly. He laughed and looked around at the circle of guards. “Can you believe this guy?”

A chorus of hurried no sirs’s rang out from the crowd.

“You didn’t get out of bed when I came by your cell on my patrol!”

“What? That’s not a prison rule,” Chit Sang muttered angrily, casting his head to the side. It was quiet, but it seemed deafening compared to the answering silence as everyone held their breath, just waiting for the warden to reply.

“Aw, isn’t that cute,” he mocked quietly before he lunged forward to life Chit San's chin with the barrel of his blaster, roaring, “Lift your head when you’re speaking to me!” 

Sokka couldn’t see his eyes from this angle, but he heard the sharp intake of breath, and knew the prisoner was petrified. 

Next to him, Zuko inhaled sharply as well and went to take a step forward, as if to help him. In a panic, Sokka reached out and grabbed his arm tight enough to stop him. “Don’t,” he hissed. “We can’t blow our cover.”

“He needs help, Sokka. He’s being punished for nothing! That’s an arbitrary rule and the warden is abusing his power! We have to _do_ something."

Sokka agreed- _of course_ he did- and he was relieved to know Zuko hated what was happening as much as he did, but there was too much at stake. If they went rushing in with guns blazing in front of all these guards and the warden, they'd never make it out of there. 

“I know.” He took a breath and repeated, much gentler, “I know it’s not fair, and I want to step in as much as you do, but getting Yue and the others out relies on us holding our cover.”

Zuko studied him, searching his face. Underneath Sokka’s hand his arm was tense, energy thrumming through his body, and he thought the captain was going to ignore him and bolt into the circle. Eventually though, with a glance back towards Chit Sang, he sighed, the tension easing out of his body, and he stepped back into his spot next to Sokka. “You’re right.”

“Please sir, I’m sorry for speaking out! I didn’t mean to offend you! I just want to go back to my cell, please,” the prisoner pleaded desperately. His voice was shaky from terror, but he held eye contact with the warden, looking up the arm that held the gun to his throat. 

The warden tsked and shook his head. “Oh, Chit Sang… You know I can’t do that. I mean, we’ve got thousands of prisoners watching, waiting to see what will happen. if I let you go without punishment, they’re all going to think they can talk to me however they want, or that the rules are able to be broken, or that there’s no consequence for bad behavior. I can't have that, now can I?”

Chit Sang’s head bowed slightly and he mumbled thickly, “No, sir.”

The gun dug a little harder into his throat. “What was that?”

He lifted his head once more. “No, sir.”

“Good.” With a cruel smile, the guard lowered the gun and turned on his heel to walk away. As he approached the edge of the circle, the spectating guards parted quickly to give him a clear path through. Without looking back, he said, “Now, Chit Sang. Don’t  _ ever _ disrespect me like that again.”

Before Chit Sang could even open his mouth to respond, the warned pointed the gun behind him and pressed the trigger, releasing a bright blue ball of energy that hurtled through the air and collided with the prisoner’s chest. A second later he hit the ground, unconscious. 

“Someone take him away,” the warden snapped with a lazy gesture, as if he were bored by the spectacle. “And the rest of you, get back to work!”

The circle of guards dispersed quickly, everyone muttering amongst themselves as they headed back to their positions, but the three of them were silent, frozen in place by fear and disgust. Sokka’s mind was racing as he processed what he’d just seen, and Zuko’s words from earlier echoed around his head like a steady drumbeat. 

_ They don’t need lethal weapons to keep people in line. Trust me,  _ he’d said, without even a trace of uncertainty. 

And that had just… Well, it had proved it, hadn’t it? It didn’t seem like Chit Sang had done anything wrong, but they’d still used him to make a statement to the other prisoners- the warden and the guards had all the power, and they weren’t afraid to use it. And they didn’t even need a weapon capable of killing to do it. In addition to knocking whoever was on the receiving end of the blast out, the pain caused by an energy weapon would be enough to scare anyone into behaving, even if- when fired at a close enough distance (though much closer than where the warden had shot from)- they didn’t leave deep, brutal scars. 

Scars like the one on Zuko’s face, Sokka slowly realized. Something sour twisted in his gut as the pieces of his mysterious past slowly began to come together, but before he could grab onto them and make any sense of the image they were creating, Zuko turned on his heel and walked towards the elevator without a word. He took off quickly, seeming to hardly pay any attention to where he was going or if Suki and Sokka were behind him. 

Sokka wished he could see his eyes, if only so that he had any clue as to what Zuko was thinking. Or maybe that they were better friends so that he could offer him strength, or comfort, or reassurance. As it was, though, all he could do was trail along behind him, apologizing to all the guards Zuko bumped into, and ignore the way his stomach was twisting itself into knots. 

☆☆☆

The control room was a small room (more like a closet, really) wedged in between two cells on the far north side of the building. It was completely covered in screens and monitors, all showing different views of and information about the prison. The ones to the left and right were dedicated to video feeds from the prison, while the center wall was dedicated to the main control panel as well as a few more monitors keeping track of different things around the prison. It was manned by three guards, one on each wall, and they all looked up expectantly when the three of them walked in.

Sokka’s finger twitched on the trigger of his blaster, ready to fight if needed, but to his surprise the three guards all stood up and stretched eagerly.

“Oh man, shift change already?” the one on the right side asked.

Sokka shot Suki a look and she gave him a minute shrug before saying, “Yep. Boss ordered it himself.”

“Let me tell you, it was about time. My ass was going numb from just sitting here all day, and if I had to spend one more minute staring at these screens my brain was going to melt,” the guard on the left piped up.

“Well, I’m glad we got here when we did,” Sokka laughed. “That would be hard to explain to the warden, wouldn’t it?”

The other three guards all laughed, then the one in the center asked, “Hey, do you lot have your data sticks?”

“Oh yeah,” Zuko said, stepping forward. “It’s right here.” 

Without hesitating, he swung his blaster up and hit the man under his chin, hard enough that he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The other two guards let out shouts of alarm, but before they could do anything, Sokka and Suki were leaping into action- Suki taking down the one on the left with a strong roundhouse kick that caught the guard’s neck, and Sokka taking down the guard on the right with a well aimed punch to his solar plexus, followed by a punch on his chin for good measure. Within seconds, all three guards were unconscious on the ground.

“Well,” Suki said, brushing herself off, despite the fact that there wasn’t a single hair or piece of clothing out of place, “that was fun.”

“You and I have very different ideas of fun,” Zuko grumbled, pulling the guard he’d knocked out over to the corner of the room by the door. “Bring your guards over here.”

They tied the three guards together with a thick piece of wire that was in the other corner, then turned to the wall of screens before them, with Sokka sliding into the chair on the middle wall. He grinned when he saw that the guards’ data stick was still in its slot, so he didn’t have to bother hacking the system- all the access he needed was granted by the small rectangular device inserted into the control panel. 

“Alrighty,” he murmured to himself, settling in to begin his digging, though it quickly became clear that it wouldn’t be that easy. 

The prison’s interface was in Hifuki, the language spoken in the Fire System and in places held by the Empire, as opposed to Basic, the language spoken throughout the galaxy. It was also as if every single piece of data about the prison- from the readings of the water pump that kept the rock under them from boiling to the logs showing ships and transports landing or taking off to communications- was coming through the main control screen, and it was enough to make his eyes ache, even without being able to understand it. 

He sighed, and looked over his right shoulder to Zuko. “Hey buddy, how’s your Hifuki?”

“It’s been a long time since I used it, but…” He leaned in a little closer, golden eyes scanning the screen quickly, before he nodded. “It’s still good enough I can help you navigate.”

“Great. Okay, what type of file would the prisoner log be under?"

“Administrative.” He scanned the screen again, and pointed to an icon in the upper left corner, barely visible behind all the incoming data. “There, that’s the portal. Click on it.”

He selected it, and a pop up appeared on the screen. It had a line of text on it, and Zuko read aloud, “It needs a verification of status, like a card or an identification stick. Does the central guard have anything like that?”

“I can check,” Suki said, already approaching the huddle of guards. She grabbed a cylindrical stick from the breast pocket of all three guards, and handed them to Zuko. “None of them have cards, just ID sticks, but I can’t remember which is which. They all look the same to me.”

He huffed a breath, looking down at them, then selected one with a purple band around it to hand to Sokka. “This one. In the Fire System, purple signifies higher rank.”

Sokka slid it into place, and the pop up gave way to a new desktop, this one much more subdued than the last. Rather than new information coming in every few seconds, it was just a nice array of files and documents. Zuko gestured to one of the files, and once it was open, pointed to a document. Sokka clicked it, holding his breath in anticipation just to let it out in a deep sigh when it finally loaded; the document was nothing more than a long list of nonsensical arrangements of numbers and letters in Basic, and it made his head spin.

“Is this Hifuki?” he asked, puzzled by it.

“No, I’ve never seen anything like this before. No other Fire System prison I know of is set up like this... It must be some sort of code.”

“And you’re sure this is the right document for us?” Suki asked.

“Yeah. Everything about prisoners and logs and codes seemed to be leading us here, so…”

Sokka frowned at the list, ignoring his crewmates as he focused on the top line. It was a series of fourteen numbers, followed by two letters, four more numbers, then a scattering of numbers and letters. Put together, it read:  **13196384578901-CC-1738IT-4P1D-BH10167** . He went to the next, and the next, and the next, seeing that they all followed the same general layout, before one caught his eye-  **05678912549761-SFA-1245IT-5P0D-EPKR40186** . Something about it looked familiar, so he began pulling it apart in his brain slowly, and after a long moment it suddenly came crashing down on him.

“Wait, I figured it out!”

Suki stared at him for a long moment, her jaw hanging open, before she stuttered out a shocked, “What?”

“I figured it out! Their code! It  _ is _ how they classify prisoners, it’s just confusing to look at. Here, take this one for example. I didn’t understand it at first, but I remembered the coordinates that Toph got from the message- sixty-seven point eight-nine North, one-hundred twenty-five point four East, and ninety seven point six-one degrees, Sector five. This one here says just that- sector, latitude, longitude, angle. From there it says SFA- Star Fleet  _ Aurora _ , captured twelve forty-five imperial time. Five passengers, no droids, and then… Well, after that I lose it.”

Zuko leaned forward and studied it, then slowly shook his head with an expression that he couldn’t describe as anything other than awestruck. “Sokka, you’re a genius. That’s absolutely it. And that last bit is the prisoner code. Enemy of the Phoenix King, classified as a rebel. Then it has what must be the floor, forty, and the cell number, one hundred and eighty-six, that person was put into.”

Suki laughed suddenly, loud and bright, and smacked a kiss onto his cheek. “Sokka, you absolute genius, you found them!”

He laughed too, relief flooding his veins. “We found them. We actually found them!”

“Quick, that’s where one of them is, what about the others?” Zuko asked.

“Okay, it looks like… We’ve got two on floor thirty-one, cells forty-nine and one hundred eight, and the other two are both on floor sixteen, cells ninety-seven and one hundred sixty-six.”

“They must have put Yue so far from the rest because she’s the leader,” their captain mused out loud, running a hand across his chin. 

At their questioning gazes he clarified, “They organize their prisons according to who’s the most dangerous. The more dangerous you are, the higher up your floor is, and the further down your cell is. It’s an old fashioned system, but what about the Empire isn’t? They must think if Yue was near her crew, they wouldn’t obey their orders as well. Or whatever they have on board their ship- that precious cargo they talked about- is important enough to make her seem that dangerous.”

Sokka hummed, thinking ahead to their next step. “I know you want to see her as soon as possible, Suki, but I think that should be the one to go break Yue out. I don’t know any of the other people on her crew, so they might not trust me. But they know you guys.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed, just the barest hint of sadness evident in her voice. “I was thinking the same thing, honestly.”

“I’ll go to floor sixteen,” Zuko volunteered. “I’m not completely sure who’s down there, but I would imagine it’s Teo and Song. I doubt they’d look at them and think they’re very dangerous.”

“Then I’ll go to floor thirty-one, and get Haru and Jin,” Suki nodded. “We can meet back here once we have them.”

“Perfect,” Sokka agreed. “Except one thing. The cameras. This isn’t the only control room, which means we’ll be seen on camera.”

Zuko hummed, looking at the wall that was covered in tiny screens showing the video feed. “What if you could jam the signal so that the timestamp keeps going, but the camera is stopped? I don’t know if that’s possible here, I’ve just heard of it working in other places.”

Sokka clapped his hands, leaping over to the left wall’s control panel. “That just might work, actually! Let me see what I can do.”

His fingers flew across the keyboard- this control panel was luckily in Basic- and after a few minutes of furious typing, he had bypassed the live feed channel. While he couldn’t freeze it, like Zuko had suggested, he was able to set it on a loop, timing it based off of several guards who were pacing as they made their rounds. This way, as the timestamp kept ticking up, the guards kept passing in and out of frame in a realistic manner. 

“And, there we go,” he said, leaning back to admire his work. It was flawless, without even a glitch to show that the footage was repeating itself, and he suspected that if the guards in the other control rooms were as bored and tired as the ones here had been, they’d never suspect a thing. 

Zuko laughed lightly and clapped Sokka’s shoulder. “Brilliant.”

He beamed at the praise, catching Suki’s eye, and she gave him a proud wink before she slid her helmet back on and said, “Let’s go get our friends.”

They checked that the guards were still out cold and tied securely, then made their way once again to the elevator- Zuko entered one to go down, while Sokka and Suki entered the other to go up. They separated with nothing more than a solemn nod cast their captain’s way, which he returned with a two finger salute. 

When the elevator reached the thirty-first floor, Suki took a deep breath, whispered, “Get my girl for me, Sokka. I’ll see you in a bit.”

She lifted her chin and strode out of the elevator confidently, and then he was alone.

☆☆☆

The ride up to the fortieth floor was agonizing- just waiting in silence with nothing but the sound of his own breathing echoing around the metal confines of his helmet to keep him company- but it was the walk to cell one hundred and eighty-six that really got his pulse racing. In their group of three he hadn’t felt the least bit visible, but on his own it was as if every single guard on that floor was watching him, no matter if he was passing them, approaching them, or on the other side of the hexagon from them- he could just feel their gaze, hot and heavy on the back of his neck. 

It was a little bit ridiculous really, considering that no one stopped him or even so much as spoke to him, but still. As the numbers ticked upwards- twenty turning to forty-eight to seventy-nine to one hundred and fifteen- their gazes got heavier. Still, he continued walking, getting closer to his cousin with each step he took. When he got to the cell though, he paused, and dread flooded his veins. 

The locking mechanism for the cell was the same version as they had back at rebellion headquarters, and it required a three step verification process; a code, a biometric scan, and a key card. And Sokka, of course, had none of those. His hesitation wasn’t unnoticed, and the guard patrolling the chunk of blocks that included Yue’s quickly approached him.

“You alright there?” It was the voice of an older man, and rather than being suspicious and barking, it was soft and gently inquiring. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry sir,” he said hurriedly, letting himself stumble over his words so that he sounded a little younger than he was, meanwhile he quickly thought of an excuse. “I have orders from the warden to fetch this prisoner, here in cell one-eight-six, and bring them to him, but I was so eager to please him that I completely forgot my card to swipe, and now I’ve forgotten my code, too, and I’m just so nervous because I don’t want to let him down and-”

“Woah, slow down there son, take it easy. The warden himself spoke to you, huh?”

“Yes, sir, he did. I was shaking in my boots, I tell you. I’m new here, you see, and I wasn’t expecting to be given such a big job so soon. And he was still upset after what happened with the other prisoner, the one he shot, you know? It was terrifying.”

He patted Sokka’s shoulder sympathetically. “I’ve been there myself, quite a few times. Even as long as I’ve been a guard here, it never gets any easier to be face to face with that man. You’ve just got to keep your head high, alright?”

“Alright sir, I can do that.” He made a big show of sighing, and hung his head low. “I suppose I’ll just have to go back down to get my card and remind myself of my code. I’ll be late and I’m sure the warden will be angry, but… I don’t have any other choice.”

“Not so fast! I’ll open the cell for you myself.”

“Really?” Sokka asked, his awe that it had worked seeping into the question.

The guard chuckled. “Like I said, I’ve been there before myself, and another guard helped me out when I needed it. It’s about time I paid that back.”

“Thank you, sir, it really means a lot!”

He laughed again, and began punching in his code. “I’ll set it up so you can just pass through, and that way you can have a moment to prepare the prisoner. I know those cuffs can be hard to work the first time. When you’re ready to go, just place your comms device on the door and it’ll open for you both.”

Sokka glanced down at the cuffs attached to his belt, and nodded quickly. “Yes sir, that would be great.”

“Good luck, son. She’s a feisty one.”

The translucent blue of the cell faded, and without hesitating he stepped in. Immediately upon its return, the sounds of the prison faded away, and Sokka froze. 

The cell was bare, containing nothing except a thin cot and a screen that he imagined was used to project the demonstrations like he had seen today. It was cramped and empty and soulless, and he couldn’t imagine spending any time in there without going crazy. That wasn’t what made him freeze, though. No, what made him freeze was the woman slowly getting to her feet, with long brown hair- a few shades darker than his- that had been tied into two braids that ran down her back, piercing blue eyes just like his own, and an expectant look on her face. That face, which despite having the sharper features of a woman rather than the softer curves of a teenager, was still familiar.

For the first time in seven years his cousin was before him, and he couldn’t help the laugh that fell out of his mouth.

Her expectant look quickly turned into a glare, and the looseness she’d held herself with snapped into a ready stance, with her arms raised as if to strike him and her feet firmly planted. “What do you want, Empire scum?” she practically spat, moving carefully towards him. 

“Scum?” he couldn’t help but gasp, bringing a hand to his chest in mock disbelief. “Who are you calling _scum_?”

“Oh please,” she said as she rolled her eyes, leaned forward onto the balls of her feet, and swung straight towards him.

Moving back quickly to avoid her strike, he pressed his back to the wall with the screen, raised his arms in surrender, and said quickly, “Wait! Don’t hit me, please. Yue, it’s me, your cousin.”

Her brow furrowed and her arms dropped slightly in surprise. “Wha- Sokka?”

“Yeah. I’m breaking you out,” he grinned, lifting up the face plate of his helmet enough for her to see it was really him.

“Sokka!” She exclaimed, throwing herself onto him and wrapping him up in a tight hug- one that he eagerly returned.

“Hi, Yue. It’s been a long time, huh?”

“Too long. But Sokka, I don’t understand,” she exclaimed through breathless laughter, pulling back to pat his arms as if to check he was actually real. “How are you here in the prison? How are you even in my  _ cell _ ?”

“I’m on Suki’s crew, and so is Katara. After we got your message, Zuko told us where he thought you might be, and we made a plan as quick as we could to come rescue you. As for how I’m here, I kind of tricked the guard into thinking that I was a nervous wreck who forgot everything I needed for clearance because the warden asked to see you.”

She beamed in excitement at his revelation, and as she spoke he shifted them so that his back was to the doorway and began fiddling with the cuffs so that if the other guard came by, it looked like he was struggling.

“Oh, Sokka… Genius as always. And that’s so wonderful! Everyone on APPA is amazing and they’re all very close friends of mine. I’m glad you’re on such a good crew.” She paused, narrowing her eyes at him. “Wait… If I know them, which I do, they wouldn’t let you stage a prison break on your own. Who else is here with you?”

“I’m not alone,” he confirmed. “It’s just three of us, though; Zuko, myself, and-”

“You better not say Suki,” Yue cut in, looking at him with a pointed gaze that told him she already knew exactly what he was about to say- she just didn’t want to believe it. 

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly with one hand and his eyes darted around the bare cell, looking at anything but her. “Um…”

“I  _ told _ her not to do anything stupid,” she grumbled with a long suffering sigh and a slight shake of her head. He could see in her eyes, though, that it wasn’t because she was angry, but rather worried for her fiancée. She didn’t seem surprised, though, and it made him how many times Suki had done reckless things like this, despite Yue’s best wishes (he also had to wonder how many times Yue had done the very same- she had a habit of placing her duty above personal safety, so he could imagine this was a common conversation between the two women, and one that easily went both ways). 

“Yeah… You know Suki, though. She wasn’t going to let anyone go without her.” Cheekily he added on, “She loves you too much to do that.”

The quip had the desired effect, making Yue huff out a laugh and roll her eyes. “Yeah, I knew it was futile when I said it. I assume she’s off rescuing the rest of my crew?”

“Yeah. She’s grabbing Haru and Jin, since they’re near each other. Zuko has Teo and Song. We’re supposed to meet in a control room with you all, and then… Somehow, we’re busting you out.”

“ _ Somehow _ ?” she asked in an eerie imitation of both Katara and Zuko.

He sighed. “The plan is a work in progress, okay? But we’re definitely getting you out of here.”

The disapproval melted off her face and she rocked on her heels with a cocky grin, the one every member of their family seemed to share. “Sounds like my type of plan.” Then, tossing one of her braids over her shoulder, she said with mock seriousness, “Alright then, mister guard, take me away.”

She stuck out her wrists, and he snapped the cuffs on her easily, loose enough that if she needed to she could pull her hands out of them. “Here we go, then.”

When they emerged from the cell, the old man was halfway through walking back toward the end of his chunk of cells, and he sent Sokka a thumbs up. 

“Looks like you worked those cuffs out okay, then?”

“Yes sir, I did. Thank you very much for your help again, and for the advice. I really,  _ really _ , appreciate it… You definitely saved my ass,” he said, making his voice as young sounding and naive as he could.

“No worries there, son. Everyone needs their ass to be saved once in a while. Now you better get going. Wouldn’t want to keep the warden waiting, now would we?”

“No sir, definitely not. Have a good one!”

He turned away, making a show of pushing Yue- gently, though she made an exaggerated trip to make it look like he pushed her much harder- and they began making their way down the hall. 

Once again, he seemed to feel everyone’s gaze on him, but he kept his head high and gave Yue the occasional push to keep the facade. No one said anything to them, and before too long, they were in the elevator and on their way.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” he said with renewed confidence that this was actually going to work as he rolled his shoulders to stretch them out.

“Don’t get cocky now,” Yue warned him wryly. “You’re taking me to a control room, right?”

“Yeah, we knocked out the guards in one and commandeered it to find you all.”

“And what’s your plan for defending bringing a prisoner into the control room, should anyone ask?”

He blanked, knowing that she brought up a very good point. “Um, lots of false confidence and wielding the warden card? Everyone seems to be terrified of him, so I just say I’m following orders.”

“And what about when Suki and Zuko show up with two of their own prisoners? Not every guard here is as nice as that old man. I know that and I’ve only been here for a few hours.”

He sighed, thinking quickly. “Um… I don't know. It’s too late to come up with a new plan, and I don’t have any other way to communicate with Suki or Zuko. I guess we just have to risk it.”

She shrugged. “Alright. I trust you to figure it out if anything comes up.”

As if on cue, the door of the elevator slid open. Sokka pushed Yue out of the elevator ahead of him, keeping his blaster aimed at her back, and ordered, “To the right.” 

For the third time that day, the guards’ eyes seemed to follow him as he led her along, prodding her with the blaster every so often to keep her moving. They had almost reached the control room without issue when a gruff voice called out from behind him, “Hey! What are you doing with that prisoner, soldier?”

Sokka turned, coming face to face with another guard, this one tall- taller than even Sokka was- and broad and scarily muscular and over all terrifying looking enough that his palms started sweating. Still, he laughed shakily and frantically thought of a lie. 

“I’m… Well you see, what happened was that the warden was speaking to this prisoner here- a rebel, you know how he hates those- and he ordered me to take this scum back to her cell. The only problem is that-” he paused here and made a big show of looking around nervously before leaning in close to whisper, “The only problem is that I forgot what cell she’s in.”

“You forgot,” he began slowly, crossing his arms (which Sokka couldn’t help but swallow nervously at, because his arms were as thick as his head), “which cell she’s in?”

He tore his eyes away from the scary man’s, quite frankly, excessively muscular arms and stuttered out a lame, “Uh, yeah. I did. Super embarrassing, right? Anyways, I was hoping to pop into the control room, just to see if anyone could double check for me that I have it right.”

“Uh huh,” he grunted. “Then I guess you better go and do that, before the warden finds out she isn’t in her cell, shouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir! That sounds like a great plan. You sure are smart, you know that? And I mean, wow you look really  _ strong _ , too. It’s quite impressive,” he rambled nervously. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Yue was looking at him with a mix of perplexion, embarrassment, and no small amount of desperation for him to shut his mouth, which… Yeah, he deserved that. The guy was just… Really intimidating, and definitely suspicious, not that his rambling was helping in any way whatsoever, and…. “Alright, I’ll be doing that now! Have a good day!”

Before the guard could say anything else, he pulled Yue into the control room and slammed the door shut.

“Sokka, what the fuck  _ was _ that?” Yue asked through shaking laughter. “That was like watching two ships collide in slow motion.”

He hid his face- well, his helmet- in his hands in embarrassment and groaned, “I don’t know, okay? I panicked. He was scary and suspicious of me and his  _ muscles _ -”

“Whose muscles?” a dry voice asked from behind him, laced with the barest hint of amusement, and once again Sokka froze. Because that voice was- 

“Zuko! It’s so good to see you!” Yue exclaimed, pulling a wrist out of her cuffs to wrap him in a tight hug.

“Hey Yue,” Zuko grinned, happier than Sokka had ever seen him. Which… ouch, honestly. His cousin got a warm smile while he just got glares and snide remarks? It was totally not fair. Though Sokka had to admit, smiling was a good look for him, all soft and happy and normal and… 

He shook himself, cursing his thoughts for being so scattered while squishing the embarrassment of Zuko hearing him rant about some dude’s muscles (no matter that he wasn’t venting about them out of attraction but rather intimidation), and turned to look at the other two people in the room. 

One of them was a tall, pretty girl with kind eyes, long brown hair tied up in a simple ponytail, and a soft smile as she watched Zuko and Yue’s reunion. The other was a younger guy, about Aang’s age it seemed, with shaggy black hair and a pair of goggles on his head, though Sokka couldn’t help but fixate on the hover chair he sat in. It was a truly remarkable piece of technology, built out of stainless steel and accented with shining blue light where the technology that made it float must have been. It had a tall back, rising up a few inches above his head for better support, as well as a panel behind his legs that ended in a footrest. The craftsmanship was truly amazing, the likes of which he’d never seen before, and he was itching to ask the guy more about it… But after they had successfully busted out of the prison. 

He realized he was staring at the two of them, and grimaced slightly before he walked up to them, lifting his face plate as he went. “Hey. I’m Sokka, Yue’s cousin, and I work on Zuko’s crew as the engineer.”

“Oh no way, I’m the engineer on Yue’s crew!” the guy in the hover chair exclaimed, grinning even wider. “I’m Teo. Thanks for coming to bust us out, man.”

“Yeah, no problem. I just have to say that I’m amazed by your hover chair… I’ve never seen anything like it before and I’d love to ask you some questions about its design later, if you don’t mind of course.”

Teo nodded happily. “Totally! I’d love to geek out over it with a fellow engineer.”

The girl standing next to him giggled at that and looked at Sokka with a kind smile. “That’s a total understatement… He’ll try to talk to us about it, but none of us have enough knowledge to understand what he’s saying. You’ve just made his day by showing an interest,” she said teasingly. “I’m Song, by the way. I’m the medic onboard.”

“Hi Song, it’s great to meet you. I’m sorry we weren’t able to get there any sooner-”

“It’s alright, Sokka,” Yue interrupted from behind him. “You’re here now, and we couldn’t be more grateful.”

“Sokka’s actually the one who figured out how we could be here, did you know that?” Zuko said with something like pride lacing his voice. “We couldn’t have done it without him.”

He blinked in surprise, shocked by Zuko’s open praise of him. He waited for a moment just to see if the other shoe would drop and he’d spit out some insult, but it never came. Zuko just kept looking at him, a glimmer of pride and gratitude in his eye as he stared at him. 

“Oh,” he finally said awkwardly. “Um, I mean it’s nothing really. We still don’t know how to get out of here, so-”

The door swung open forcefully all of the sudden, and two more prisoners were shoved in roughly by a guard, and Sokka knew it had to be Suki. He shot a glance towards Yue, who at the moment was more focused on checking on the wellbeing of the two new prisoners- a shorter girl with her hair in two short braids and a taller guy with long hair and a rather unfortunate mustache. As soon as she saw they were okay, though, her gaze slid to Suki, who was currently grumbling under her breath and hadn’t seemed to notice any of the other people in the room as she fiddled with something on her belt, and he saw the moment she realized what this all meant.

“Suki,” she breathed out, blue eyes shining.

She looked up sharply at her name and Sokka heard her breath catch as she saw her fiancée. Without a moment’s hesitation, she tore the faceplate off of her helmet and tossed it to the floor before she rushed forward and wrapped Yue up in a tight hug, laughing shakily. “Yue! You’re here, you’re okay!”

“I’m here, love,” she whispered back into Suki’s neck, eyes closed and a gentle- almost blissful- smile on her face. 

As Sokka gazed at the two of them, happy and smiling and  _ together _ , he couldn’t help but forget, for a moment, that they were in the middle of an Imperial prison no one had escaped from before.

“They’re cute, aren’t they?” A voice, and one he recognized from the distress signal, said from next to him.

He glanced down at the girl and smiled softly. “Yeah, they are. I’m Sokka, by the way- Yue’s cousin.”

“Hi Sokka… I’m Jin. Oh, and Mustache Man over there is Haru- he runs weapons for us.”

At the mention of the nickname, Haru gave a long suffering sigh. “Is it really that bad?”

Sokka grimaced, while Jin snorted and teased, “I just think that before you see Jet again, you might want to shave it.”

He groaned, running a finger over. “You sure? I don’t know, I think he’d like it.”

Teo had been listening in on their conversation, and he reached out to pat Haru’s hand comfortingly. “It’s okay, buddy. I think it makes you look dignified.”

“Thank you, Teo. At least someone in this room cares about me.”

“ _ This room _ is kinda crowded,” Suki said, pulling away from her embrace with Yue but keeping an arm wrapped around her waist. “What’s the plan now?”

Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, seven pairs of eyes were on Sokka.

He looked around at them and took a confused step back. “Why are you all looking at me? Do I have something on my face?”

“You’re the plan guy, aren’t you?” Suki raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, you got us here.”

“Well, yeah, but…” He sighed, but there was the glimmer of a plan forming in his mind, so he ignored the implication that being good at making plans meant he  _ always  _ had to be the one to come up with one, and pressed on. “Alright, here’s what I’ve got. When we first got here, we came in on the Starfighters. Those are too small for all of us, and I doubt we’d be able to steal eight and get away. But when they captured you all, they brought you in on your ship, right?”

“Right,” Yue confirmed with a sharp nod.

“So, they probably stored it somewhere. If we find it, we can steal it back and escape on it.”

“That’s brilliant,” Haru said excitedly. “We definitely don’t want to lose the  _ Aurora _ , so I think that’s the perfect plan.”

Yue nodded her approval, smiling at Sokka with pride, as did everyone else. He appreciated their approval, of course, but there was (frustratingly) only one person he really cared to impress.

“Zuko, what do you think?” he asked his captain, for the second time in a matter of hours.

He nodded easily. “Let’s do it.”

Sokka grinned, though a thought quickly occurred to him that made it slide off his face. “Great. One problem though… I don’t know where the  _ Aurora _ is.”

“What?” Zuko’s mood shifted quickly, and his easy attitude turned to sharp inquiry. 

“Well, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the hangar that we entered through, so… I don’t know where it is.”

The captain sighed and ran his hands down his face again. “Okay, that’s fine, it’s all fine... We found all of you just fine, we can find where a second hangar might be.”

“Control six, come in please,” a voice crackled through the room, interrupting anything Sokka might have responded with, and they all fell silent, looking to the flashing red light on the main control panel that indicated an incoming message. “I repeat, control six, come in please. You have missed check in. Please report back, or we will send guards to ensure you are secure.”

“Well that complicates the plan then, doesn’t it?” Suki asked wryly with a deep sigh.

“Yeah, I didn’t have that in my books,” Sokka responded. His palms were sweating once again, and he wiped them on his stolen uniform as his mind raced. “Uh, well I would say we radio back but I’m sure they have some sort of code or protocol and the second we don’t know that, they’ll be onto us.”

“Well what are we supposed to do? We still don’t know where the ship is and we’re in a group of eight, so we can’t be discrete. We need more time,” Zuko hissed at him, beginning to pace back and forth. 

“Control six,  _ please come in _ ,” the voice repeated, growing all the more insistent.

He was distantly aware of everyone else bursting into conversation, tossing idea after idea out, but Sokka was silent, lost in his own thoughts. Because Zuko was right; they needed more time. Time that they couldn’t get without a plan, but every plan that was coming to mind wouldn’t work for some reason or another. 

He thought maybe they could disguise some of Yue’s crew as more guards, but there was no doubt the guards outside the control room would realize something wasn’t right when that many of them emerged. They could make a break for it, but someone would be suspicious before they could get very far. They could wait for the guards to show up and play stupid, but where would they put everyone who wore a prison uniform, or the three guards still tied up together? They could fight the guards that came, but given the size of the prison and the sheer number of guards, they’d be overwhelmed before they could even make a dent. 

No, what they needed was something to distract everyone from noticing them, something big, and messy, and chaotic. They needed some sort of spectacle that was so great no one would notice three guards and five prisoners slipping away until they were already long gone. 

His gaze slid to the five people wearing prison uniforms, and it was like being hit by an asteroid.

“I’ve got it,” he said, looking at Zuko. “I know how to get us out of here. It’s completely crazy and it’s a big risk, but… I think it’s going to work.”

“What is it?”

“We came for a prison break, so let’s give them a prison break.”

Realization, then doubt, flickered across Zuko’s face quickly, and his voice was tense when he spoke. “You don’t mean-”

Sokka nodded. “We’re going to open the cells and let everybody out.” 

The room fell silent, seven pairs of eyes staring at him once again, this time in disbelief.

“Just think about it,” he said when it became clear no one had anything to say. “We need a distraction. Otherwise, there’s no way we get out of here in time. But if there’s mayhem caused by letting out all the prisoners, who’s going to notice just eight people slipping away? Who’s going to notice five prisoners are missing until it’s too late?”

Suki hummed, thoughtful as she tapped her chin. “It’s definitely crazy, but… I think it’ll work. We find the second hangar, let everyone out, and while everyone else is running around trying to get the prisoners back into their cells, we’ll be making our way to the ship.”

“Exactly,” he said, excitement leaking into his voice. With every passing second, he became more and more sure this would work, though he was ever aware of the fact that every passing second also brought them closer to being found out. The voice had stopped repeating its message, which was a relief for his ears, but he knew it only meant that a group of guards were on their way and would be here any moment. “Listen, we don’t have time to debate this. It’s either open the cells, or get thrown into one ourselves.”

Without waiting for anyone’s approval, he launched himself towards the control panel, pulling up the map of the prison. This time, though, he scanned desperately for something resembling a hangar, and gave a shout when he found it. 

“Here! Above the fortieth floor, there’s another hangar that takes up the entire floor! That must be where the ship is. Now we just need to figure out how to release all the prisoners.” He glanced over to Zuko, who was standing with his arms crossed and chewing on his lip nervously. “Zuko, I need your help.  _ Please _ ,” he practically begged. “This is the only option we have left.”

He sighed deeply, but after a moment’s hesitation he came over and scanned the screen. 

“There, that menu. It says prison controls.” 

Sokka pulled it up to reveal a long scrolling menu of icons and options, and noticed one that had a crossed out door. “Even I don’t need to know Hifuki to know that this is it, but just in case, this is it, right?”

“Click it,” was all the confirmation Zuko gave him.

Without hesitating, Sokka clicked the icon. An alert popped up, what he recognized as a confirmation pop up form before, and Zuko pressed the central guard’s identification stick into his hand. Sokka slid it into place once more, and the pop up disappeared. 

“Is that it?” Yue asked. “Is it done?”

In place of any one answering her, alarms began blaring throughout the prison, buttons across the control panel began flashing, and countless warnings popped up on the screen in front of Sokka. Looking at his companions, he grinned despite the anxiety thrumming through his body.

“Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah... That was a lot.
> 
> Basic, the name of the common language spoken throughout the galaxy, comes directly from Star Wars.  
> Hifuki, the name of the language spoken specifically in the Fire System, is Japanese for fire breathing.
> 
> Also I took a lot of technological and creative liberties here so if something doesn't make sense... Just roll with it I guess lmao
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and for leaving comments/kudos, and check out my tumblr! ([@zukosadragon-ace](https://zukosadragon-ace.tumblr.com/))

**Author's Note:**

> So... There it is! I really hoped you enjoyed it. I'm really curious to know people's thoughts, so please let me know by leaving kudos/comments and checking out my tumblr, [@zukosadragon-ace](https://zukosadragon-ace.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'm so excited for the rest of this story <3
> 
> ~ Chapter Guide ~
> 
> URSF: the United Republic Star Fleet, AKA the rebellion; a joint effort between the Earth and Water Systems to fight back against the Empire  
> The Empire: the common name used to refer to the Fire System, which is trying to take over the galaxy  
> Water System: a small binary system consisting of two planets, Nerrivik (Southern Water Tribe) and Alignak (Northern Water Tribe)  
> Nerrivik: an Inuit deity (also known as Sedna); the sea-mother and patron of fishermen and hunters  
> Alignak: an Inuit lunar deity; god of weather, water, tides, and eclipses  
> Fire System: a medium sized star system  
> Earth System: the largest solar system in the galaxy  
> Ba Sing Se: the largest planet in the galaxy; one of the last major URSF strongholds  
> Kyoshi: a small Earth System planet that is an incredibly important planet to the rebellion  
> Air Nebula: a large nebula where the four Air planets were; destroyed at the beginning of the war  
> Anila: Southern Air Temple; Named after one of the Vasus, Hindu gods of the elements of the cosmos  
> Rudra: Northern Air Temple; A Rigvedic deity associated with wind and storms; also seen as a healer and source of 1,000 remedies  
> Begtse: Western Air Temple; Named after the pre-Mongolian Buddhist spirit guardian; the lord of war and a protector  
> Varuna: Eastern Air Temple; Named after a Hindu god; ruler of the sky and upholder of cosmic and moral law  
> The Oasis: a shady planet outside both Empire and rebellion jurisdiction; a safe haven for criminals, bounty hunters, people on the run from something, etc.


End file.
